Amazon Introduces a New E-Reader

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, let all his Twitter followers know on April 4 that a new Kindle was in the works. Just over a week later, Amazon started showing off its completely redesigned Kindle Oasis e-reader.

The new device is close to square with a side grip and a 6-in. screen that contains the e-reader’s central processing unit, storage, and battery. By changing the glass covering, Amazon was able to strengthen the glass and cut down the device’s size, according to a report from Mashable.

Amazon claims the battery life of the Oasis will be two weeks, but the leather case that will be shipped with it includes a backup battery that will extend the life by seven additional weeks. However, the device does not include the Alexa app that provides voice services to a number of Amazon products such as the Echo wireless speaker and voice-command device.

The Oasis is available for preorder and will begin shipping on April 27. It will cost $289.99 for the Wi-Fi-only edition that shows advertisements when the reader is turned on. The unit without advertisements costs $309.99, while a 3G device will cost $359.99 with offers and $379 without.

“The device’s funky new aesthetic is a surprise move for the relatively no-frills Kindle category, and yet it packs the longest battery of any e-reader ever made,” Nick Statt wrote in a review of the Oasis for The Verge. “These changes raise interesting questions for book lovers: What do we really need in an e-reader, and how much should those elements cost us?”

App Enables E-Books on Apple Watch

“It. Was. The. Best. Of. Times. It. Was. The. Worst. Of. Times.”

That’s how a college student might encounter the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens while reading the classic novel—often assigned for English literature courses—on an Apple Watch. A new app called Wear Reader functions as an e-book reader for the watch.

The 99-cent app basically displays the e-book text word by word. You can adjust the reading speed from 50 words per minute up to 1,000 and jump back to previous text if you missed something. Wear Reader also allows the user to bookmark pages, pause the display, go to a different chapter, and switch among various e-books.

To get an e-book into the watch, though, users must attach the device to an iPhone in order to import the reading material from iCloud or Dropbox. Wear Reader cannot import e-books straight from Apple’s iBooks, but no doubt that capability will be available in a later version.

However, in the opinion of one reviewer for 9to5Mac, what’s the point of reading books on your wrist?

“It’s not only about battery life, but also the user experience overall,” wrote Jordan Kahn. “Not to mention holding your wrist up for much longer is ergonomically terrible, as Steve Jobs would put it.”

Tech Buyers Want Multichannel Options

Most college students love the latest electronic gadget and many will be in the market for something new this holiday season. A new report on retail technology trends found most buyers like shopping both online and in-store and aren’t that interested in wearable tech yet.

Purch, an online publishing company, surveyed more than 3,000 “tech enthusiasts” to track consumer-technology buying trends and identify top brands. It found that 74% of respondents planned to shop both online and in stores for their tech purchases, while just 4% said they would limit their shopping to traditional bricks-and-mortar locations.

Smartphones, laptops, and tablets were the top product categories. Half of the respondents said they would buy a Samsung product, followed by Asus (40%), Microsoft (38%), and Apple (28%). Fewer than 10% of the respondents said they would consider a smartwatch (9%) or fitness device (8%).

The report found that tech consumers relied on product reviews (86%) and articles by experts (74%) to help them make their buying decisions. Social media (18%) and advertising (12%) were at the bottom of the sources list.

“Consumers value a multichannel shopping environment and they look to product reviews and expert content to guide their purchase decisions,” said Purch CEO Greg Mason. “You can’t deny the authority and influences these resources have on technology enthusiasts in particular.”

Tough Year Ahead for E-Reading

2013 wasn’t a great year for e-readers. Sales of the devices continued to decline and a study released in December found that 60% of the consumers who downloaded e-books never read them. Michael Kozlowski, editor of the blog goodereader.com, is predicting more of the same in 2014.

First, E Ink will start moving away from e-reader technology. The e-reader business has been losing ground to tablet technology for more than a year and Kozlowski wrote that expansion into the digital signage market will be its next move.

The E Ink shift away from e-reader technology may be helped along if Kozlowski is right about Barnes and Noble. He predicted that since B&N makes more money on digital content sales, it will decide to give up on the Nook. He also expects Sony to give up on its e-reading devices to focus more on tablet and multimedia-based experiences.

He also predicted declines in both reading on tablet devices and e-books in general.

Reading on tablets will decline because manufacturers will move away from producing as many tablets in favor of more smartphones in 2014, which should produce more smartphone readers. Or maybe, with e-book sales flat or in decline throughout 2013, people will just head back to hardcover and paperback books.

“With the way things have gone in 2013 in the e-reader and tablet sector, some people may be optimistic about the future,” Kozlowski wrote. “I, for one, am not.”

E Ink, Sony Team on Flexible Reader

It appears reports of the demise of e-ink have been greatly exaggerated.

E Ink Holdings has introduced a new flexible electronic paper display (EPD) technology that will be used by Sony in its new large-format e-reader. The company claims the new display is more durable and can weigh up to 50% less than other display screens.

The new Sony product is a 13.3-in. e-reader designed for students. At just 12.6 oz., the new device is much lighter than a 10.7-in e-reader using an LCD screen. The screen also is flexible, or at least the image provided to TeleRead appears that way.

“Flexible can mean different things to different people,” Giovanni Mancini, director of product marketing at E Ink, told TeleRead. “In our experience in working with E Ink’s direct customers and in talking to end consumers, the feedback we received was that they wanted a product which was lightweight, rugged, and conformable to a not-flat surface.”

1/3 of US Adults Own an Ereader or Tablet

According to this study the number of adults who own either a tablet or an Ereader jumped to 29% in January from 18% in December 2011.  The ownership of devices doubled from 10% to 19% just between mid-December and early January.  This article states since there was no new Apple products during that period and assumes that a large share of the growth can be attributed to Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s Nook.

Question: Should Retailers Own Branded e-Book Device: yea or nay?

Some retailers are opting to make or brand their own e-Book devices. Teleread reports that German booksellers Weltbild and Hugendubell launched their own device recently and following will be Waterstone, expected to launch their e-reader next year.  Bloomsbury executive director Richard Charkin says, “ You need to be able to offer both [e-books and a device] if you are to take any share of the market,” says in the story.   It is also reported that the American Booksellers Association is in talks about making its own device.  Penguin’s vice-president for digital commerce, Tim McCall agrees with this view and said it was necessary for a retailer with a digital strategy to have a reader as part of it, reported in the article.

We picked up on this commentary by Steven Lyle Jordan, an author, who disagrees with the message of this article.  “Bookstores should be making every effort to be the place people want to buy ebooks from, and read on whatever device they have. That means value-adding to the ebooks. Deals, memberships, exclusive content, customer-tailored specials… those should be their strategies.”

Should book retailers have their own devices, aim for a more device agnostic strategy, or both?  What do you see as the pros and cons of a store owned and branded device?  What do you think? 

New Readers Target the Ed Market

According to this press release, “the first-ever e-book readers for the educational market” have now arrived. The "first ever" claim is a bit of a stretch given other devices released in the past two years, such as the Entourage Edge as one example.

Apparently for the U.S. market alone (for now at least), the jetBook K-12 features “speaking dictionaries” in English and Spanish—with promise of 38 more languages to come—as well as an electronic SAT-prep course, speed-reading courses, a text-translation system, calculators, preloaded reference books in a variety of academic subjects, an audiobook player, and more.

For the world market, the jetBook Color boasts a 9.8-in. color E Ink screen, all the features of the jetBook K-12 plus “extra components based on each region’s educational system.” This seems to refer to the release’s claim that the jetBook Color will be “implemented in schools across the U.S., China, and Eastern Europe,” although no specifics are provided about any actual adoption agreements or timelines.

The devices are the result of collaboration between Ectaco Inc., a New York-based producer of handheld electronic dictionaries and translators, along with the existing jetBook line of e-readers, and China’s Hanvon Technology Co., which specializes in pattern-recognition technologies and products and also manufactures the WISEreader e-reader.

It will be interesting to see what sort of reviews post after readers get hands-on experience with these devices.

E-Readers Aren’t Ready for School Yet

College students will likely continue to watch the development of e-readers from the sidelines because the devices simply aren’t yet suited for use on campus. That’s the conclusion of a blogger for the Seattle Times, who looks at the findings from a pilot study using Amazon’s Kindle DX at the University of Washington.

After seven months of use, fewer than 40% of the computer sciences and engineering graduate students taking part in the study used the device for homework. They found the Kindle DX to be poor for note-taking, and said skimming text and looking up references were difficult.

While those are all problems that could be fixed with future upgrades, the study also suggests the digital text disrupts a learning technique called cognitive mapping, which allows readers to use physical cues, such as the location of words on the page, to help retain and recall information.

A possible solution may be found in tablet computers such as the iPad, because the Apple device is able to bolster conventional text and images with interactive and multimedia content, according to Fast Company.

Young Readers Starting to Become E-Readers

There have been a number of studies showing that college students continue to prefer using printed books when taking a class, including one from OnCampus Research. However, the OnCampus Research study also added it was a trend that may not last long as younger readers begin to get more familiar with using electronic readers.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that publishers are seeing increases in sales of children’s and young adult e-titles. The article provides details from both HarperCollins and St. Martin’s Press that show jumps in digital sales of young-adults e-books in just the first month of 2011.

One possible explanation for the increase is that price drops in the electronic devices made them attractive for younger readers last Christmas. The Times also suggests K-12 teachers may be getting reports that some K-12 teachers are beginning to allow leisure reading on the devices during homeroom or in English classes.

Initial College Evaluation of iPad Favorable

Reed College, Portland, OR, was among seven institutions nationwide to participate in the Amazon Kindle DX pilot program in 2009 that found the device didn’t meet “the needs of higher education in terms of being an alternative to paper.” Martin Ringle, the school’s chief technology officer, then put the Apple iPad through the same paces and found quite a difference, as noted in this Campus Technology piece.

Ringle and his team at Reed College are preparing a white paper detailing their results, including a test to measure the level of distraction from the iPad compared to a laptop or desktop computer. Since the 1960s, Reed has had a strong reputation for adopting technology after careful analysis, so its findings carry some weight around the nation.

The college isn’t yet ready to make every student come to class with an iPad, but is working on getting more input from faculty and students. After that, it plans to look into cloud computing using the same step-by-step approach.

Update on Kno and Other Tablets

The School Library Journal had a recap and video clip from CES this year focused on the Kno. The Kno was unveiled last year as a tablet designed specifically for education. Initially something of a disappointment, the company has come a long way. Kno is a spin-out of Chegg, the textbook rental company. While textbook rentals have existed on a number of college campuses for more than 40 years, it is really Chegg's entry to the market less than 3 years ago which has led to the dramatic adoption of rental as a standard business model across the U.S. textbook market. With preliminary content from some of the largest textbook publishers, it will be interesting to watch where Kno goes in the coming year and how the company will chose to work with educational institutions and the college store community. The School Library Journal provides some additional updates on the device.

The journal also has another story on tablets and CES this month. The piece covers a range of the devices and discusses their implications for education and text.

Gartner’s e-reader predictions

An article from ElectronicsWeekly.com discusses some stats from a new Gartner study. Gartner predicts that e-reader sales will reach 6.6 million units in 2010, an increase of 79.8 percent from 2009. In 2011, sales could surpass 11 million units which would be a 68.3 percent increase from 2010.

Gartner says that e-readers will need to maintain a price advantage because few consumers are likely to buy both an e-reader and a tablet.

Interview with James McQuivey, Forrester Research

The Beyond the Book website features an interesting discussion with James McQuivey, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, about the events that have occurred in the publishing industry over the last year and what we can expect in the future as e-readers and e-books take off.

The audio of the discussion is available here.

Fairfield Public Library’s Technology Petting Zoo

Here is an example of a library that is making technologies available to patrons via a Technology Petting Zoo. Fairfield Public Library in Connecticut has an Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Sony Reader on display so that patrons can test out the devices before purchasing their own. Library personnel are also available to answer questions about the devices. The library plans to add additional devices as they become available to help its patrons become more informed consumers.

Survey finds 21 percent of book buyers own an e-reading device

A recent Publishers Weekly article discusses the results from the Codex Group’s national book shopper survey. The survey found that 21 percent of book shoppers now own a dedicated e-reader or tablet. This increase can be attributed to the launch of the iPad and the decrease in the price of the Kindle. By next summer, Codex estimates that 36 percent of adult readers will own devices.

The survey also found that 26 percent of adult book buyers already read digital books and an additional 34 percent of book buyers are willing to try digital books. This means that up to 60 percent of all adult book readers could choose to read in digital format. Another 14 percent of adult book buyers said that they would never read a book in digital format.

To read more about the survey, you can view the article here.

Holiday Gift Guide to eReaders

eBookNewser has compiled a Holiday Gift Guide to eReaders that you may find helpful. It features a listing of all the e-readers and tablets that are on the market this holiday season. The guide includes a little bit of information about each and the associated price tag.

e-readers expected to be a top seller this holiday season

E-readers are expected to be a popular gift this holiday season and many e-reader companies have expanded the distribution of their devices to stores like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. In addition, Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, have come up with new ways to promote their devices on the web or in the stores.

In an article from The New York Times, Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, says, “This is the tipping-point season for e-readers, there’s no question. A lot more books are going to be sold in e-book format. It also means that a lot fewer people are going to be shopping in bookstores.”

Forrester Research predicts that about nine million e-readers are currently in circulation in the United States and this could increase to 10.3 million after the holidays.

As mentioned previously, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association, e-readers rank fifth on the holiday wish lists of adults.

Delta Electronics to work on 3D e-paper in 2011

According to a posting on E-Reader-info.com, a company called Delta Electronics will soon begin mass producing color e-paper displays. The company says that their screen has a faster refresh rate than E Ink displays. Delta Electronics also says that 3D e-paper is possible and it will be a major focus for the company in 2011.

Using e-readers to assist students with reading disabilities

A recent Education Week article discusses how e-readers may be able to help students with dyslexia and reading disabilities. To date, there is not much research to confirm that e-readers can improve reading skills but the devices are still evolving and many educators believe that there is true potential. Some of the benefits that e-readers on the market today can provide are: text-to-speech functionality, the ability to change the size of the type, and a built-in dictionary that can help students look up words and pronunciations. In addition, children may feel more comfortable using the devices in front of their peers because e-readers were not specifically designed for students with disabilities, students may need less assistance from teachers and parents, and the devices could help reduce the time it takes for students to receive the content they need in the format that they require.

Along with these benefits, there are additional capabilities that could be added to e-readers to make the devices more powerful. David H. Rose, the founder and chief education officer for the Center for Applied Special Technology, says, for now it is imperative to bring together the manufacturers of e-readers, as well as educators, policymakers, and experts in educational technology, to determine what features e-readers could and should include.

Lotta Larson, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Kansas State University, pointed out that professional development will also be required. "I don't think the e-reader in itself is going to make a difference, but if it's used with effective instruction, then it can make a huge difference.”

As the devices evolve and more experiments are implemented, we can expect that additional research will be conducted to determine if e-readers can improve reading skills and assist those with reading disabilities.