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Sony’s New eBook Software Takes Aim at Kindle
Earlier this week, Sony announced that it will be bringing out a new eBook Reader that will offer built in 3G wireless and the ability to buy books on-demand — just like the Amazon Kindle. Today, Sony has released its eBook Library Software 3.0 for both Windows and Mac users.
The software — which will finally let Mac users interface with Sony’s devices — allows users to browse and purchase books online. This is pretty standard stuff, and apart from Mac compatibility (finally), no different than what Amazon already offers with the Kindle.
The big difference with Sony’s approach is that users can now read eBooks on their Mac or PC. Amazon won’t even let you buy a Kindle book unless you have a Kindle device attached to your account or you have an iPhone or iPod touch set as a registered device. Furthermore, you can only read the books on the portable devices themselves.
Google Book Search
Google Books for mobile is now available for Android and iPhone users.
Inside Google Books: Download Over a Million Public Domain Books from Google Books in the Open EPUB Format
Over the years, we've heard a lot from people who've unearthed hidden treasures in Google Books: a crafter who uncovered a forgotten knitting technique, a family historian who discovered her ancestor once traveled the country with a dancing, roller-skating bear. The books they found were out of copyright and in the public domain, which meant they could read the full text and even download a PDF version of the book.
I'm excited to announce that starting today, Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in an additional format, EPUB. By adding support for EPUB downloads, we're hoping to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places. More people are turning to new reading devices to access digital books, and many such phones, netbooks, and e-ink readers have smaller screens that don't readily render image-based PDF versions of the books we've scanned. EPUB is a lightweight text-based digital book format that allows the text to automatically conform (or "reflow") to these smaller screens. And because EPUB is a free, open standard supported by a growing ecosystem of digital reading devices, works you download from Google Books as EPUBs won't be tied to or locked into a particular device. We'll also continue to make available these books in the popular PDF format so you can see images of the pages just as they appear in the printed book.
Google Now Offers Over a Million Free Ebooks in EPUB Format
Have you noticed that Sony launched its best ebook reader a couple of days ago, with an AT&T 3G modem for fast wireless connection? Not by accident, Google (Google) has now announced they’re offering over a million public domain books in EPUB format – the exact format compatible with Sony’s Daily Edition reader.
To download a book, search for a title over at Google Books. Public domain titles will have a download link in the upper right corner. Which brings us to the first major difference between the Kindle and this Google-Sony open book strategy: while Amazon only offers 300,000 titles, Google’s million books aren’t, for the most part, the most attractive ones, and Sony’s own ebook library doesn’t offer a choice as good as Amazon – at least when it comes to modern titles.
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