FutureBook

Last Thursday the Indian government unveiled a prototype of an iPad-like touch-screen tablet device (with the rather unfortunate name Sakshat) and a price tag of only 1600 rupees (£23). The country's human resource development Minister Kapil Sibal said a manufacturer was being sought for the gadget, with students targeted as the main end user. Plans are being mooted to roll out 110 million of the devices to school children by 2011. Read more »

How are rights shifting in the digital age? Last month I attended a Publishers Information Day, organised by the German software company Klopotek, which offered some insights into how the old ways of dividing up rights are being challenged. As Klopotek said: "The definition of pubrights and subrights is becoming more and more granular as most authors and agents no longer agree to the good old: 'all rights, for all languages, for all territories' anymore." Read more »

Clay Interactive Ltd is taking on the might of the A-Z with the development of two interactive city tour guide apps for the iPhone: The Unofficial Beatles’ Liverpool and The Sherlock Holmes Guide to London.
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Digital publishing solutions company FirstyGroup has signed a partnership with Kiwa Media to sell their QBook applications for the iPhone and iPad to publishers. The FirstyGroup already offers a straight e-book conversion service for publishers.  Read more »

On Thursday Winged Chariot released its second picture book app of the iPhone and iPad. Similar to the first title, Emma Loves Pink, The Birthday by Sylvia Van Ommen and Maurice van de Bij is a cute book for animal loving youngsters.

The Dutch pair drew and designed the picture book especially for the Phone and iPad which offers read aloud text in English, Dutch and Japanese. The app is available in all itunes stores and is priced at $2.99, £1.79 or €2.39.

Enough said.

WingedChariot has is entering the race for girly-est app ever, with the release of its first picture book for the iPad. Emma Loves Pink is the first in a new series of multi-lingual picture stories for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and it tells the story of a ridiculously cute hare who loves the colour pink. Read more »

The PocketBook 302 is the touch-screen sister of the PocketBook 360, from
Ukranian-based Green Reader and on sale in the UK through
www.greenreader.co.uk.

Aesthetically the PB302 looks very chic indeed; it has a minimalist design
with a six-inch responsive touch screen, or you can use the buttons to the
side of the screen to navigate.

As an e-reader it really does do the job perfectly well, books load easily
and titles can be organised in the library as you see fit. A negative from a Read more »

Ukrainian company PocketBook has delivered its second e-book reader to the market, the PocketBook 360. An efficient and functional device the PB 360 is both easy to use and easy to read. It is also a nifty little thing: managing to show off a five-inch screen whilst still weighing in at a positively anorexic 150g. Fully charged it can also keep going for about two weeks (based on 3 hours of use a day) making it ideal for commuters.
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