eBook News

First and foremost I want to thank the Pew Internet project for collecting and disseminating information about ebooks and reading. I love the data itself, I just always want more.  Whenever I read articles about reading habits and devices, I always wonder not just about the devices (or no device) that people are reading from, but I also wonder about the people being questioned about how much that they read. I see statements like the "more than 8 in 10 Americans ages 16-29 read a book in the past year and 6 in 10 used their local public library" and it makes me think about other questions. I remember when I was at the Butterfly exhibit in Gainesville, and the docent mentioned that this was the second largest butterfly habitat in the world, well the next words that I said (and at least three others at the same time) was "what is the largest?" So when I see something that mentions that 8 out of 10 people read a book that year, I wonder "at...

Really interesting inforgraphic created by Aptaracorp and Publishers Weekly

UPDATE 3/13/2013: just read that the final selling price will be $69 not $15, in large part because they didn't get a cellphone company to underwrite the device - in which case that makes it cost just about the same as a base kindle (which is a more capable device). Just came across 'txtr's beagle  ( http://us.txtr.com/beagle /) today and I think it could be the next exciting thing for schools to consider. Right now it isn't available in the US, but they are working to make it for sale here. What makes it so different, it's the price and the batteries. Their plan is to sell it for about $15US and it runs on AAA rechargeable. This isn't a truly interactive reader, not touch screen or note taking, just the basic read with three control buttons. But as we start to think about Bring Your Own Device or Tech (BYOD-BYOT), here is something that will work well with smart phones and just the cost of two mass market paperback books and well less than the cost of one ...