Told you so: oyster, spotify of books

I have been harping on that streaming books “might” be one future for digital books. Seems the folks at Oyster actually did something about it though.

Oyster, a new startup that wants to be the Spotify of books, announced it has raised $3 million led by Founders Fund. The money will help Oyster build a library that allows members to access an unlimited number of books for a monthly fee.

Read about the news over at gigaom.

Nexus 7 on the midnight train

Fresh back from Copenhagen, I declare that my nexus 7 tablet makes an excellent travel companion.

The tablet made the flight bearable as I watched some funny Louis C.K comedy to take my mind off the fact I was off the ground. Like nearly all hostels, the Danhostel Copenhagen Downtown has wifi in the main lounge area. But instead of the common desktop PC, they let guests make free use of several laptops and an iPad in exchange for I.D. On top of this they had a charging station behind the counter so that anybody could safely charge mobile phones and USB devices like my tablet (it really needs a name: Frank Mobile, FM for short ok?).

I found out about the charging station as my lack of foresight had me bring a generic charger that failed to breath any life into FM. Luckily Copenhagen was so much fun that I didn’t actually ever flatline.

Me and the brothers (an aside: we got called “semi-black” in a bar cue #awkward moment lost in translation) mostly used the music in our hostel room with a dash of twitter/facebook stalking thrown in for good measure.

The size of FM is perfect for my backpack, a North face “Big shot” and sat easily in the front zip. I fashioned a case from a used Amazon parcel cardboard box with rubber band which did the trick. I have yet to stumble across an affordable case so this will do for now.

At this point it is worth highlighting the cost. At £199, I felt totally happy to use the device everywhere and not cringe whenever I handed it over or rammed my bag into a carry compartment. The price point is pretty compelling and my fellow travelers will be investigating devices at this price point (amazon fire and maybe the rumoured Apple iPad mini). The only disappointment for my brothers was that most UFC sites still use flash for video, can’t win every time.

The apps we used in no particular order were Flipboard, google reader, youtube, Google chrome, Google email.

I forget that I am a nerd and have a need to code, but that for most of the world, email, facebook, youtube and web browsing is plenty enough internets. I did sit in the bar over the 6 days looking at travelers from all reaches of the planet. I observed that none of them had a laptop, it was either the Apple iPad or various flavours of mobile phone. Anybody who says that a mobile phone isn’t heavily used for reading is a mug.

An interesting discovery was that one USA traveler was using the 2nd Gen Kindle purely for the 3g connectivity, for email and twitter no less. 20 bucks well spent was the simple answer.

So next time I travel I will be bringing my new travel friend along.

02 ebook testing kit

Various ereader hardware stacked upon each other

I have just finished up a consultancy project building an ebook that i’ll talk about soon. The photo above shows the kit that I used to test the ebook at various stages. I produced two files in the process: EPUB for most devices including the iPad and a Mobi file for the Kindle hardware and app version.

  • Laptop with various reading software – Adobe Digital Editions v2.0, Kindle app, ibis reader, Kindle previewer (lets me test all versions of the hardware on the computer and saves buying hardware).
  • iPad with the Kindle app and ibooks (i used 3 iPads v2+3)
  • Google nexus7 with the Kindle app, Aldiko reader (lame) and Moon+reader (also lame), ibis reader
  • Kindle Paperwhite
  • Nook Simple Touch
  • Kindle 2nd Gen – it was kicking around so why not?!
  • Kindle previewer (allows you to test in all versions including the Kindle Fire)
  • Kindle Touch
  • Sony PRS-350 (thanks Stephen) – great to see how e-ink handles colour graphics
  • iPhone 4 with the Kindle app, ibooks and also ibis reader
  • HTC One X with Kindle app and ibis reader

For each device, the ebook displays and behaves differently so it is essential to test on the devices that you think will be used. Mr Andy Clarke said it best:

Designers need use only a subset of devices, because what matters most is that we develop an affinity for how our designs work on any type of device when we hold it our hands. To be clear, how a menu feels when used on a smartphone is a very different issue from whether it technically works on a particular make or model of smartphone. That’s why designers don’t necessarily need to buy a myriad of smartphones and tablets, just those they need to develop an affinity for.
Andy Clarke, Encouraging Better Client Participation In Responsive Design Projects

Sound simple right?! I got the list partly from what I have been using anyway and then from The mobile read wiki which has popular community input.

I will write more about ebook building, testing and frustrations in future posts.

By the way, my favourite reader is the now in limbo ibis reader which I read on my mobile phone or nexus7.

How to view Kindle books from Dropbox

When I produce ebooks I will always knock out versions in EPUB, PDF and Kindle file formats.  Testing on the hardware device is straightforward but I suspect the Kindle App is very popular and thus a priority to test thoroughly. Yet it isn’t obvious how one goes about getting the ebook into the app.

Below I describe the method that enables me to quickly load a mobi file format book into the Kindle app on my phone.

For this test I use the Apple iPhone 4 with the dropbox and Kindle apps installed then:

  1. Save the Kindle file (.mobi) into dropbox
  2. Open dropbox and browse to the kindle file
  3. Press the icon/filename – dropbox will attempt to open the file
    Screengrab of attempting to open kindle file in dropbox
  4. Dropbox will fail to open the file and give you an unhelpful message saying “Unable to view file” BUT you should notice the arrow icon is now available in the bottom corner
    Screengrab of dropbox
  5. Press the button and you’ll have the option to open the ebook in the Kindle app.
    Screengrab showing the Kindle app is available
  6. Choose the Kindle app and then happy reading!

 

Guide to using digital media in teaching and learning

Using digital media in teaching and learning is a new guide that I wrote aimed at people who are curious about how images, video and audio might be applied.

I hope that this guide can act as the first port of call for learning technologists and teachers who aren’t quite yet ready to read about the “how-to” kind of stuff that we are great at.

We explore what digital media is, where it can be used to support teaching and learning and what the key opportunities and challenges are.