Monday, April 30, 2012

RAW vs JPEG (JPG) - The Visual Guide. From @SLRLounge

Shooting RAW vs JPEG is a question that every photographer faces at some point. There are many articles out there that cover the topic from the basics of size and quality, to all of the advanced technical details regarding color bits per channel, compression, firmware DCT processing, etc.
So, here is the disclaimer, if you want the technical details regarding RAW vs JPEGs, Digital Photography School has a great technical primer discussing the basic technical differences, a brief Google search will also unearth loads of additional more in depth technical resources as well.
This article is designed to teach you the differences between RAW and JPEG (JPG) from a pragmatic real world point of view. Thus, we will be using a lot of actual image examples to help show the exact concrete differences. In addition, we are going to leave out most of the technical mumbo jumbo that won’t really help you beyond being exceptionally proficient at speaking “nerd.”
[Reminder: Be sure to check out our 1) Lightroom 4 Presets, 2) Lightroom 4 Tutorials and 3) Vintage Photoshop Actions]
We will be using images shot from the Canon 5D Mark II RAW vs JPEG (JPG)   The Ultimate Visual Guide with a Canon 50mm F/1.4 RAW vs JPEG (JPG)   The Ultimate Visual Guide prime lens for all of our examples. Also, let me thank Justin Lin of Lin and Jirsa Photography ahead of time for being our helpful model. Keep in mind that, while you may be shooting on a different camera, be it a DSLR or an advanced point-and-shoot with RAW capability; the principles discussed here apply to all cameras although the differences may vary slightly from model to model.
Full article here....http://wtr.mn/J5Khp9

Countdown to @drupa2012: Top 5 things not to miss.

  1. Früh in Köln
  2. B2 is not a small Hammond organ at HP booth. http://h30599.www3.hp.com/
  3.  Benny's new deal at Landa Corporation booth. http://www.landanano.com/drupa-premiere-the-rise-of-nanographics
  4. Panorama book workflow at Mohawk http://www.mohawkconnects.com/community/events/2012-05, On Demand Machinery http://www.odmachinery.com/, and Convertible Solutions http://www.convertiblesolutions.com/news/convertible-solutions-at-drupa 
  5. Fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn http://www.gettingaroundgermany.info/autobahn.shtml

Five reasons Microsoft scored with Nook deal. From @seattletimes

1. Windows tablets get a huge new retail channel. They'll get prominent display (physical and/or branding) in nearly 700 Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country. That's in addition to Microsoft stores and all the other retailers that carry Windows devices.
2. Microsoft search and online services benefit from the alliance, which will federate millions of registered Nook users and book shoppers with Microsoft services.
3. Windows 8 gets a killer app and media cachet. Tablets are mostly for consuming content, and Microsoft had yet to announce any truly unique media apps for its upcoming tablets, leaving the device vulnerable to being branded as a dull machine for business users. A top-tier e-book platform complements the music and video services Microsoft has on tap and helps position the tablets as premium media devices.
4. The commerce potential of Windows 8 tablets soars. The most successful tablets are handheld stores. They're designed to funnel people to vendor's digital storefronts, where transactions are simple because devices are sync'd to credit accounts. Getting to this point has always been a hurdle for Microsoft's Windows business. The Nook deal gives Windows 8 critical mass as a commerce platform.
5. This is way beyond competing with Amazon.com's Kindle or any particular device. That was the Nook's biggest competitor, but the bigger competition is between Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon over whose cloud platform will serve as consumers' digital hub and online repository. Digital books and "print media" are a cornerstone here that Microsoft lacked.
Original post here...http://wtr.mn/IPWkYx

At $1.7 billion, Nook is worth more than Barnes & Noble itself. From @gigaom

The $300 million investment in the  Nook subsidiary of Barnes & Noble gives Microsoft about 17.6 percent ownership of this business unit. That values this part of the business at about $1.7 billion. Before the markets opened this morning, the Nook business was valued about $900 million more than Barnes & Noble itself.

More here....http://wtr.mn/KuDiK2

Capture daily life on May 15th 2012 with @AdayDotOrg

Click here for other languages

On this one single day we ask you to pick up your camera and help us photograph daily life. What is close to you? What matters to you? We will connect your images to images from all around the world, creating a unique online experience where photographs will be shared, compared and explored. Your view on life will be preserved to inspire generations to come.

But why?

Our mission is to use the power of photography to create, share and inspire perspectives on daily life – today and tomorrow.

And who are you?

This project is initiated by the Swedish non-profit foundation Expressions of Humankind and supported by a highly respected global advisory council and a special scientific council.

Who can join?

Professionals, amateurs, school children, farmers, social media fans, astronauts, office workers and you. Cell phone camera, Hasselblad, home made or borrowed. We are looking for the perspective of everyone who enjoys photography.

What will happen to the photos?

All images will be displayed online for you and everyone to explore. Some of them will be selected for a book, A Day In the World, to be published in October 2012, others shown in digital exhibitions. Every single one will be saved for future research and inspiration. The photos will never be used for commercial purposes. They will always be treated with care and respect. Should your photo be selected to feature in a book, we will try to contact you beforehand.

Why should I join?

Because you love photography. Because you have something to say. Because your life matters. Because the idea of doing something together worldwide is thrilling. Because you like the thought of saving a little something of yourself for generations to come. Because your take on daily life is part of a much bigger picture.

Why does Desmond Tutu think this is such a great idea?

Many inspiring people around the world are supporting our project and think you should join, too. Read more about what they say about us here.

Who makes this happen?

You do, if you decide to join us. And our project team, based in Stockholm, Sweden.

More here.....http://wtr.mn/J55xey

Has the eBook ship essentially missed the indies? The eBook and eReader Conundrum. From @publisherswkly

We have been selling eBooks for months now and sold very few. We have sold some, but is it enough to spend dues money pursuing? Or, has the eBook ship essentially missed the indies in any substantive way? I hear more and more customers talking about their Kindles, iPads and eReaders, but are these customers just too conditioned to download their content from websites that do it better than I do? Should I stick what I do best, which is sell books, with pages, covers, and that delicious book smell, or do indies go head to head and bring their own eReader to the market?

More here,,,http://wtr.mn/JMImJJ

Microsoft Finds A New Nook in E-Books. From @wired

Microsoft announced Monday that it is investing $300 million in the Nook, the Barnes and Noble e-reader that is the closest competitor to Amazon’s Kindle. The investment gives Microsoft a 17.6 per cent stake in a new entity valued, based on the infusion, at $1.7 billion.

While they have yet to name the new company — it is referred to as Newco in the statement — the new partners did announce that there will be a Nook app in Windows 8, Microsoft’s next-generation desktop OS expected to launch with a near-final version in June. As part of the deal the two companies have also settled patent litigation. Microsoft previously announced the end of Microsoft Reader, effective August 30, 2012.

More here...http://wtr.mn/Ill5fh

Friday, April 27, 2012

Ikea cardboard digital camera: when Instagram isn't authentic enough (video). From @engadget

Forget TVs. Want something more whimsical and lo-fi than Instagram? This is a digital camera made of cardboard that Ikea included with its press kit at this year's Milan Design Week. It runs on two AA batteries (Ikea-branded, natch) and features a swing-out USB plug, viewfinder cutout, shutter key and paperclip-friendly erase button. While there are no details on the sensor, lens or storage capacity, the camera holds up to 40 pictures. It's expected to land in Ikea stores at some point but exact pricing and availability are still a mystery. No matter -- this camera is sure to impress hipsters everywhere (and yes, that includes us). Awesome demo video after the break.

Exclusive: Behind the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Awards. From @timepictures

On Thursday night, the book Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs by Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis, from Getty Publications, was named the winner of the 2012 Kraszna-Krausz Best Photography Book Award at the Sony Photo Awards in London. The book presents more than 1,000 photographs by Watkins, a 19th-century landscape photographer of the American West, along with essays and research. Jem Southam, a British photographer and a professor at the School of Art and Media at Plymouth University, sat on the judging panel; he spoke exclusively to LightBox about the process of judging photography books.

More here....http://wtr.mn/IeOzev

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Meet the Only Bidder for Kodak's Photo-Sharing Website. From @daily_finance

Picking through Eastman Kodak's (EKDKQ.PK) remains as the photofinishing pioneer wiggles its way through Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is paying off for Shutterfly (SFLY).

The company behind the namesake website where users can turn digital snapshots into photo books, mugs, and greeting cards is the top bidder for Kodak's photo-sharing service. To be fair, Shutterfly is also the only bidder for Kodak Gallery.

More here.....http://wtr.mn/IVaSoR

Very cool. Stunning Time-Lapse Portrait of Portland Created with 300,000+ Photos

The publishing industry's efforts to compete with Amazon have not been helped by a failure to get on board with technology. From @guardian


The debate about Amazon v the publishing industry is getting so heated and so polarised that quite soon it's going to need its own version of Godwin's law. The passion is almost religious. On the one hand, you have those who say Amazon is a kind of new publishing messiah, casting out the old gatekeepers and ushering in a democratised, consumer-centric book trade. On the other, you have those who see the company as a digital devil destroying all it touches. It's neither. It's just big, strong, and ornery.
Amazon makes money differently from a conventional publisher. It is an infrastructure player. It pays low tax by canny placement – for example, by selling ebooks into the UK from Luxembourg, where VAT is 3.5% instead of 20% – and by having a largely automated warehouse and delivery system, without bricks-and-mortar stores to pay for. It buys in huge bulk for additional savings, and uses its colossal market share to secure concessions from suppliers. It's the Tesco of the book trade, and of course sells much more than books.
It's perfectly true that Amazon's approach is, for the moment, mostly cheaper for the consumer than the now-endangered agency model favoured by publishers. But the agency model's chief advantage to publishers is that it curtails Amazon's control of the market. As a matter of practicality, they wouldn't have had to collude to adopt it: the situation was plain to a blind hedgehog (which, alas, is not to say that they did not).
Before agency was introduced, Amazon boasted of controlling 90% of the ebook market. Barnes & Noble's Nook now has a share in the mid-20s, with Apple down around perhaps half that and assorted others making up a few more percentage points. Whatever agency's sins may be, it opened the way for something like competition, which is why it seems on the face of it painfully odd that publishers should face legal action for anti-competitive practices in adopting it.

More here....http://wtr.mn/ItJlwb

Unshackling e-books, slowly: A Macmillan imprint ends DRM

This is kind of a big deal: Macmillan becomes the first of the Big Six publishers to have one of its imprints reject the restrictive e-book licensing agreement known as DRM, or digital rights management.
The science fiction imprint Tor/ Forge Books announced that “by early July 2012, [its] entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free,” according to a company press release. That means you will be able to transfer Tor titles from the Kindle to the Nook to the Kobo or any other e-book reader with impunity - which is precisely what DRM controls prevent.

More here....http://wtr.mn/KeFWOZ

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

With 7B Photos, Flickr Debuts New Speedy, HTML5 Image Uploader; Drag And Drop Interface, And More. From @techcrunch

Yahoo’s photos sharing site, Flickr, has been steadily redesigning a number of components of its platform over the past few months, including editing (courtesy of Aviary), photo views and more. And today, Flickr, which says it is home to more than 7 billion photos, is debuting a new, speedier, HTML5 photo uploader for images.
With the HTML5 technology, Flickr’s uploader has a more robust experience, including drag and drop functionality. So instead of only being able to upload manually, you can add photos by dragging them into the browser. Yahoo will also show your thumbnail previews of photos, so you can manage and reorder photos before they hit your photostream. And you can zoom, rotate or sort your photos by title within the uploader itself, as opposed to within the photostream.

More here....http://wtr.mn/IJQQhA

Monday, April 23, 2012

Fifth time's a charm...doing @Drupa2012 successfully

My first Drupa was the last “odd” year, 1995.  I had been with Corbis for about a year and my prepress mentor, the invaluable Anne Taylor (now with Rods and Cones), sold my boss on the point that if we are going to be the leaders in digital still content then we needed to be on the front lines with print.  I remember that the first year of attending the “mother of all trade shows” as being a bit overwhelming but I had the advantage of having a somewhat narrow focus on prepress and printing and was able to avoid the myriad of paper, converting, and post press.

In 2000 I was working as a consultant and made my home base in Köln, spending a lot of my time working on expanding the ideas of grocery product photography into the nascent online shopping industry in Dortmund.  The 100km drive on the autobahn made my days even a bit more fun.

2004 was my first Drupa where I needed to see the full show.  I was working in the emerging books-on-demand marketplace and found every hall had something of interest that I needed to see and for the first time I really realized how big and significant this show is.

In 2008 Blurb was a full-blown phenomena and besides the usual technology research I now had multitudes of meetings with current and prospective print partners as well as doing quite a bit of research into emerging markets.  The days just didn’t seem long enough.

So what is my advice for doing Drupa successfully? I’ve been asked that quite a bit of late and here are a few pointers.

  1. Have fun.  Enjoy the show.  Don’t book yourself so tight that you can’t enjoy the spectacle of this grand event.  I usually keep my first day open for myself.
  2. Wear comfortable shoes.  This is a show where business casual is very acceptable but you won’t be looked at sideways if you wear a suit and tie.  But whatever you wear, it is always acceptable to have good, comfortable shoes.
  3. It’s bigger than you think.  See above and below.
  4. Give yourself at least three days.  There is a reason that Drupa sells 4-day passes.  It really takes two full days just to walk the show (that’s if you never stop and talk to anyone).
  5. Batch your meetings so you can minimize moving between halls.  Do your research before you go.  Drupa has great downloadable tools here http://www.drupa.com/cipp/md_drupa/custom/pub/content,oid,26799/lang,2/ticket,g_u_e_s_t/~/App_for_Smartphones_and_Tablets.html or just go to www.drupa.com.  I usually get the print catalog as well to use at the show and for future reference.
  6. See the big iron.  Even if you don’t have any need for big offset presses don’t miss seeing them in action.  The Heidelberg hall is a must if you like ink on paper.
  7. Don’t be afraid to drive. The allure of the autobahn is worth the price of admission and getting to Drupa by car is not difficult.  The Messe is easy to find and frequent shuttle busses will take you right to all of the entrances.  But don’t forget where you parked!
  8. Don’t expect a lot of “conference” stuff.  Drupa is a buying show. Most people go there ready to make a deal.  And don’t be surprised when they are serving beer at the booths by mid-morning.  It’s a German thing.
  9. Weekends are for families.  If you go to the show on the weekend there will be a lot of craftspeople with kids in tow to show what mommy and daddy do for a living.  It’s fun for the kids and it doesn’t cause a lot of problems for those there on business.  Except when it comes to printed swag, which are even hotter items on the weekends.
  10. Prepare to bring stuff home.  Every day you’ll leave with something that is cool or interesting or both.  Plan your bags to leave some space for the stuff you’ll want to drag back to the office.  Shipping from the Messe is available but it can get pricey back to the States.

Bottom line, if you start getting stressed out, just go back to point #1.  See you in Düsseldorf!

Adobe Foundation Announces New Million Dollar Creativity Scholarship

SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 23, 2012  The Adobe Foundation today announced it is committing one million dollars to establish the Adobe Foundation Creativity Scholarships – a new global initiative intended to unlock the creative potential of students. Offered to high-school seniors who participate in the Adobe Youth Voicesprogram, the scholarship will help them continue their education, pursue creative careers and find innovative ways to improve their communities.

More from press release here...http://wtr.mn/I6Ax0c

Does the use of recycled content trump all other factors – such as forestry practices, carbon footprint, and pollution? From @DeadTreeEdition

Does the use of recycled content, as some claim, trump all other factors – such as forestry practices, carbon footprint, and pollution? After all, there’s no shortage of demand for recycled fiber. If you don’t use it, it’s not going to a landfill; someone else will use it.

Perhaps the real benefit of using recycled fiber is to bid up its value, thereby encouraging more recycling. Or maybe it’s to keep that fiber from being shipped to China.

Paper represents the majority of the carbon footprint and probably a majority of the environmental impact for almost every publisher. But there’s a lot more at stake than how many trees were cut down, or weren’t cut down, to make the paper.

Those trees may have come from a sustainably managed forest, where income from timber ensures that the owner doesn’t convert the forest to farmland. Or the trees could have been cut in the process of destroying a forest to convert it to a more profitable use.

Read more here....http://wtr.mn/I6zPzO

Friday, April 20, 2012

Cloudy Times Ahead for E-Books. From @mobiledia

Writer and president of the Authors Guild, Scott Turow, expressed concern about what a shift may mean for Amazon, which he coined, "the Darth Vader of the literary world," in an op-ed piece from Bloomberg last month.
Turow joins others who contend Amazon's wholesale pricing model could create a monopoly, resulting in less diverse titles coming to market, which would hurt bookstores, publishers and readers.

More here....http://wtr.mn/JkHxYs

Blurb: eBooks can 'change the world'. From @techradar

The CEO of Blurb, the self-publishing book making company, has said that she believes that eBooks are "revolutionary", and "the next big thing".
Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittins, a photographer who was unable to find a decent way to self-publish her photographs in a professional looking book.
So far, Blurb has concentrated on traditional print mediums, but is started to move into the realm of eBook publishing with the increasing popularity of tablets.
Speaking to TechRadar she said, "eBook is the next big thing. It gives anyone the opportunity to publish their stories, their ideas, that's revolutionary, and I think that can change the world, it's the future."
At the moment, customers who create a printed Blurb book have the opportunity to also create an iPad version, but the opportunity to create an eBook only version (which can later be printed) will be arriving in the summer.

Read more here....http://wtr.mn/HY7puf

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Fujifilm to Launch a Digital Inkjet Web Press at drupa 2012

FUJIFILM Corporation will launch a digital inkjet web press at drupa 2012 as a technology showcase. Fujifilm’s new digital inkjet web press is unique in that it enables duplex printing within a single tower design, resulting in an extremely compact footprint, while retaining a maximum printing speed of 127 m/min.
The press uses Fujifilm’s new high performance VIVIDIA ink, developed specifically to facilitate superb image quality. The VIVIDIA ink used in Fujifilm’s digital inkjet web press allows high density images to be printed at high speed, with less ink transfer from sheet to sheet, with high quality reproduction possible even on thin paper. A variety of ink types, including both pigment and dye-based inks, have been developed for use with this press which, when combined with the ultra-compact footprint, maximise the application flexibility and versatility of the machine.

More here.....http://wtr.mn/J8t2FX

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Google Pumps Up Their Cloud Print Service With New FedEx Partnership. From @techcrunch

The amount of harried printing situations I’ve been party to has dropped dramatically since I finished school, but Google’s new update to their Cloud Print service should have you covered if you can’t say the same.
According to a post on the official Chrome blog Google has baked the ability to print to any FedEx Office location right into Cloud Print, so you’ll be push your documents from Chrome, Google Docs, or your Android device to a participating store and pick up it whenever you need to.
More here....http://wtr.mn/HQKsIj

The DOJ's Publishing Lawsuit May Doom Digital Rights Management. From @BW

In the days following the announcement of the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against publishers accused of colluding with Apple to raise e-book prices, much of the U.S. publishing industry decamped to the U.K. for the annual London Book Fair. Not surprisingly, the suit was a major topic of conversation at cocktail parties and in booths across the Earls Court Exhibition Centre—in particular speculation about whether the DOJ suit might finally push big publishers to consider easing their requirements for digital rights management (DRM), the controls that keep e-book readers from being able to pass a copy of a title on to a friend.

More here....http://wtr.mn/HZj6MG

Prediction: The Top drupa 2012 Stories. From @infotrends

I could be wrong. After all, the show doesn’t start for two weeks, but I think these will be the top stories at drupa:
  1. Benny Landa
  2. B2 format digital
  3. Asia Pacific impact
  4. Proving the potential of offset-digital partnerships
  5. The inkjet death battle begins in earnest
  6. Mobile, Social, Cloud
Details here....http://wtr.mn/Jal4NA

BLURB INTRODUCES “PUBLISH” FOR BUSINESS PUBLISHING NEEDS. From @GetTheFive

The creative publishing platform, Blurb has revolutionized the way we self-publish making it easy to design, publish, market and sell professional-quality print and ebooks. Just last year, over 2 million books were created and published with Blurb, earning authors more than $1 million in profits on print and ebook sales—Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools enable customers to market and sell their books, and keep 100% of their profit.
Now Blurb is now offering a new service targeting businesses, named Publish, utilizing a free Adobe InDesign™ plug-in that allows organizations to use of their preferred design software to become an end-to-end print workflow solution for high-quality publications. The plug-in includes templates for four cover formats, five paper types, and eight trim sizes - including Blurb’s all-new 8.5x11 size, which is exclusive to Publish. Publish also enables designers to complete their projects up to 75% faster using Blurb’s custom proofing tools, automated pre-flight checks, and the ability to order via credit card from within the interface.
More here....http://wtr.mn/JajxHn

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Coming Book Wars: Apple vs. Amazon vs. Google vs. the U.S. From @theatlantic

Unresolved conflicts among publishers, sellers, libraries, and the U.S. Justice Department cloud the future of the publishing industry.

Unless you are embedded somewhere in the publishing industry spectrum as an author, editor, bookseller, or librarian, the odds are that you will find it very hard to keep up with the pace of sweeping changes underway connected to the impact of the enormous expansion of digital reading. The latest authoritative survey came from Pew Research, reporting that 21 percent of American adults say they have read an eBook in the past year, with the average number of books at 24, compared to 15 for those who said they purchased only printed books -- confirmation that digital readers represent, generally speaking, very good news for literacy.

But there are three ongoing issues that greatly complicate the evolving book culture and the publishing business. In the summaries that follow, my goal is to provide as nearly as possible an unbiased consumer's guide to what is happening in these complex and contentious clashes in the industry. 

Read more here....http://wtr.mn/JzFJ8O

Why it's OK to leave a tech job at 5 p.m. By @petecashmore and @cnn

(CNN) -- Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently set off quite a debate in the tech world when she told an interviewer that she works a 9-to-5 schedule:
"I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I'm home for dinner with my kids at 6, and interestingly, I've been doing that since I had kids," Sandberg said in a video posted on Makers.com. "I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it's not until the last year, two years that I'm brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn't lie, but I wasn't running around giving speeches on it."
Here's the essential questions raised by the tech executive's comments and the debate that followed: In a competitive industry where your work is never truly complete, has it become socially awkward to leave work at a time that used to be the standard?
Read more here....http://wtr.mn/IuZJLe

Ebooks explosion. From @creditdonkey


Vistaprint looks to the small guys. Vistaprint Revisited from @whattheythink

Vistaprint’s CEO said his customers are other companies’ worst nightmares. 

At a presentation in February at a Goldman Sachs technology conference, Robert Keane explained that Vistaprint, the global company that reported second quarter 2012 revenue of $299.9 million, looks to the small guys. It’s the under 10-person businesses, the home offices, the $100-a-year clients that he wants to capture.

“It is a very hard demographic to get right, but when you get it right, they are very appreciative because they have not been well served before,” he said. Vistaprint seems to be getting it right — and is still growing. In comparison to 2010 figures, the company reported a 28 percent increase in revenue for the second fiscal quarter in December. For the full fiscal 2012, Vistaprint expects revenue of $997 million to $1,049 million.

But this didn’t come without a price. Only about two months apart, Vistaprint completed the acquisition of two companies, hoping to expand services and customer personalization: Albumprinter, a privately held Dutch photo book and photo product company, and Webs, Inc., a website development and hosting platform..


More here.....http://wtr.mn/IEtMOj

Monday, April 16, 2012

New branding, identity for @mohawkpaper

Following the announcement last week of plans to transform this fourth-generation, family-owned, premium paper business to thrive in today’s digital world, Mohawk Chairman & CEO Thomas D. O’Connor, Jr., said, “Today, we are making bold changes across every aspect of our business with the launch of multiple customer-facing initiatives that provide tangible evidence of the company’s vision and new experiences for customers.”

More from mohawk press release here....http://wtr.mn/J2PjBt

The biggest problem facing book publishing has nothing to do with the Justice Department or agency pricing. From Seth Godin

No, the challenge the big book publishers are facing is that a perfect industry is being replaced by one filled with chaos and opportunity.
More from @projectdomino here....http://wtr.mn/Iyk4go

Book Publishing’s Real Nemesis. From @nytimes

The Justice Department finally took aim at the monopolistic monolith that threatened to dominate the book industry. So imagine the shock when the bullet aimed at threats to competition went whizzing by Amazon — which not long ago had a 90 percent stranglehold on e-books — and instead, struck five of the six biggest publishers and Apple, a minor player in the realm of books.

That’s the modern equivalent of taking on Standard Oil but breaking up Ed’s Gas ’N’ Groceries on Route 19 instead.

More here....http://wtr.mn/HOfhhJ

Friday, April 13, 2012

How Interactive Ebooks Engage Readers and Enhance Learning. From @mashable

The invention of the tablet PC has created a new medium for book publishing. Interactive books are everywhere, and have revolutionized the way people consume the printed word. With the recent software available to allow easy creation of interactive books and with the race to bring these products to market, there seems to be a more and more dilution of quality and a loss for the meaning of interactivity. When publishers create new ebook titles or convert a traditional printed book to a digital interactive ebook, they often miss the added value this new medium can provide.

It’s important to understand the distinction between apps and ebooks, because it often confuses both publishers and consumers. It basically comes down to formats; apps are mostly native iOS or Android software, whereas ebooks are documents of a particular format, such as the open standards EPUB and Mobipocket (.mobi). And ebooks can be further distinguished from “enhanced ebooks,” which use formats such as ePUB3 for iBooks (Apple) and Kindle Format 8 (KF8) for Kindle Fire (Amazon).

More here....http://wtr.mn/HH5R3O

Barnes & Noble falls on e-book competition worries. From @BW

Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc. slipped more than 4 percent on Friday as investors continue to believe that Amazon.com will be become a bigger threat in the e-book marketplace now that the federal government has reached a settlement with three publishers on allegations that colluded to raise e-book prices.
THE SPARK: The Justice Department and 15 states sued Apple Inc. and major book publishers Wednesday, alleging they worked together to raise the price of electronic books. They said the scheme cost consumers more than $100 million in the past two years by adding $2 or $3, sometimes as much as $5, to the price of each e-book. The federal government reached a settlement with three of the publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Shuster.
THE BACKGROUND: The government claims that publishing executives wanted to get Amazon.com, which makes the Kindle e-book readers, to raise the $9.99 price it had set for the most popular e-book titles, because that was substantially below their hardcover prices. Amazon called the settlement ""a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books."

More here....http://wtr.mn/J7A21H

Instagram hits 40 million users after Facebook deal

News of Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram has really put the spotlight on the already popular photo sharing app, which has seen a surge in new users. Since launching an Android version of the app 10 days ago, Instagram has seen 10 million new signups, taking its total user base to 40 million. 

More from @slashgear here....http://wtr.mn/HApLv0

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Countdown to @drupa2012 has started for Heidelberg in Hall 1

Hall 1 at the Düsseldorf exhibition centre still looks like many other exhibition halls. But this will all change in less than four weeks when five Hei-Tech print shops, representing successful business models, go into operation in the hall for 14 days. Heidelberg is once again the largest exhibitor at drupa this year. The world's largest trade show for the printing and paper industry will run from May 3 through 16.

The countdown to drupa 2012 has started: At Easter Heidelberg set out to work on the assembly of its stand in hall 1. With around 60 innovations the company is presenting itself under the banner ‘Discover HEI’ at drupa, held every four years.

More here...http://wtr.mn/IrKHtQ

Issuu Integrates With Peecho To Give Publishers Easy Access To Printing. From @arcticstartup

Issuu has integrated a Peecho Cloud Print button into their service, allowing the more than 2 million digital publishers on Issuu to have the opportunity to get their hands on a few copies of their publications. Peecho specializes in the "long tail" of publishing, printing low runs of magazines, glossy paperbacks, and hardcover books. All print jobs through Peecho are printed on demand regardless of the size or number of pages.
Peecho works with a number of production facilities around the world, and with Issuu it will automatically calculate the lowest price for a printed version, and displays price comparisons. Discounts kick in when more than 10 copies are printed. 
More here....http://wtr.mn/I6koFY