As all ereader users know, any sort of page flipping beyond the simple one page forward, one page backwards, is a real pain on an ereader and at the best, very clumsy.  In fact it is the major area in which paper books are still way ahead of ebooks from the user friendly point of view.

But this may be about to change.

A bunch of guys at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have come up with a very complete new system to allow us to  move around in our ebooks with the same ease we can do this  with our paper books.  They have given it the far from romantic name of Smart E-book System – but I suppose to expect them to come up with a riveting name for their splendid invention is perhaps unreasonable, they are academics after all – A group not known for their zingey use of words.

Wiggle your fingers and it all happens:

Basically what this system will offer us is the possibility to navigate through an ebook in a variety of ways, merely by using various single and multiple finger swipes, much as we already do with all touch screen devices.  But these guys have taken it a step further, and made a number of the “swipes” start from the bezel around the screen… Not sure how they have achieve this with software rather than hardware, but achieve it they have, as you will see in the video they have made to show off this system to the world.

Currently it only exists in their labs, and the iPads they have used to test the system.  I gather they hope to sell it to Apple, or at least get it included in the Apple accepted Apps, so people can enjoy this useful system on their iPads.  But in fact I gather it could work on just about any platform, from Smart Phones through PCs to tables and iPads..

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Lethal Protection, makers of Life Phorm  have produced the most extraordinary accessory that has ever been created. It is designed to hold just about any of your portable electronic gadgets in the most comfortable and sensible position but it looks as if it might leap at your throat and kill you if you don’t watch out.

As you can see from the photos it is based on some sort of crab or head louse perhaps?

Life Phorm and Life Phorm Pro:

I am not sure what the difference is between the “plain” Life Phorm and the Pro version, apart from the price, the basic Life Phorm will set you back about $69 and the Pro will go for about $149, so there has to be some real difference between them obviously.

This wonderful thing has completely amazed me, and I can’t wait to play with one of them in due time.   I wonder what they eat?

Pictures worth a thousand words……………

I won’t waste to much time discussing this wonderful creation, as I feel the photos and the video below are more than adequate to show you what this wee beastie is capable of doing for you.

They should be available from about April this year, so when they actually hit the market, I will try and get my hands on one so that I can give you a real hands on review of this superb looking creature.

Here we have a set of photos that give a good idea of what this wonderful little insect can do for you:

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With the advent of Apple’s newest bit of software, iBooks Author App, a free program that enables you to configure your enhanced ebooks perfectly for reading on an iPAd, you obviously need to know how to work with this newest useful application.

As I am not the happy owner of either an iPad or a Mac computer, I  can’t give you a hands on tutorial based on my own experience, so courtesy of Mark Anderson the owner of a rather entertaining blog called Andertoons here is a tutorial telling you exactly how to add images to your text using this new software (with his full permission, obviously).

So, read on, the word is with Mark:

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Apple recently entered the textbook market in a big way. They’ve partnered with Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, revamped the iBooks app/store, and created the iBooks Author application to make publishing and selling books quick and easy. This is a big deal, and I’ve got a front row seat being married to an educator and having two children in school.

But as exciting as it is educationally, as a cartoonist I’m thrilled not only by the self-publishing opportunities for myself and other artists, but by what could conceivably be a whole new market for cartoons.

I can imagine all kinds of people writing and selling all kinds of books via iBooks Author, so I thought I’d explain the process of inserting a cartoon (or any other graphic) to help liven up all of that text.

Starting Your iBook

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the free iBooks Author app from the App Store and wait for it to install. Open iBooks Author and you’ll be greeted with the Template Chooser:

For the purpose of this tutorial we’re going to choose the generic Botany textbook. Click on it and you’ll be greeted with the book’s first chapter in landscape orientation:

Apple has already included a stock image to show you how much an image can improve your book, but we’re going to navigate to page three where there’s a huge swath of text just waiting for a funny cartoon to liven things up:

Because this is a botany iBook, I’ve chosen this one about roses:

Business Cartoon by Andertoons

Now let’s get started!

Inserting Your Cartoon

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Now here is a beautiful scam!  Criminals in Vancouver went to amazing lengths to get their hands on some free iPads in exchange for the original version of a tablet… clay ones.

Apparently what they did was purchase real iPads for cash at Best Buy and Future Shop in Vancouver, took the iPAds out of the packaging  and replaced the iPads with clay tablets, carefully resealed the packaging and then later returned the – apparently – unopened packaging to the shops, saying they had changed their minds, got their money back and left the shop hurriedly.

The “iPads” they had purchased where then returned to the shelves, and in due time sold to other buyers, who obviously were far from amused to discover that instead of beautiful sleek modern iPads, they had bought the oldest form of tablet known to man, clay tablets!

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Apple have just released a free bit of software, called iBooks Author App, which is intended to be used to create enhanced ebooks to be used on the iPad, and from all accounts is actually rather a neat bit of software, but as always with such things, there is one hell of a large adder lurking in the grass with this one, namely the contract that using it imposes on you.

Fury and anger at Apple’s demands

Terms such as “Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement” or “Apple is yet again attempting to steal your money and work” are typical of the phrases I have seen on the web in the last few days.   These outbursts of fury are caused by the following paragraph in the Users Agreement with this software, which you only get to see once you have used it, apparently, which reads as follows:

 If your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

In other words, if you use this software to produce your ebook, you may only sell it through Apple’s iBook store, and they have total rights to decide whether to sell it or not, and will take 30 % of the selling price as well.

The general feeling seems to be that should any author unwittingly use this software to create his masterpiece, he then has only one possible channel through which to sell it, Apple’s iBook store, and to attempt to sell it through any other routes is illegal and will result in the author being sued by Apple.

Not so:

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Here we have a rather intriguing ebook The Magic Manuscript that is based on the story of King Arthur, Genevieve, Merlin and Lancelot written by Barbara C Burgess and which is the first part of what is intended to be a series of books around these characters.

I have just finished reading this, the first of the series, and as this ebook is aimed at young adults, and I am almost 70 it would be fair to say that I am not exactly the target audience for this ebook, to put it mildly!  But I enjoyed it none the less.

It is a curious ebook, with a sort of dreamy quality about it, which given its subject matter is not unreasonable I suppose.

Basically the purpose of this ebook is to introduce us to the various characters in its cast and to set the scene for later ebooks in the series, which it does well.

As is normal with any reviews I write here about ebooks I have read, I won’t say too much about the story, except to say that apart from the well known story of Arthur and the people around him, this story also has the added element of a variant on time travel, and moves seamlessly between the Arthurian period, the Middle Ages and the 21^st century, with the various characters reappearing in  each period – One of the central ideas of this ebook is that none of the main characters ever dies, but reappears with more or less the same characteristics in different periods – with the exception of Merlin, who seems to be a real immortal and sort of watches over the entire cast of characters in a variety of guises.

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