This has to be the most depressing video ever for any true book lover.

An intriguing and gripping short film

Rich Adin of An American Editor (a site always worth a visit by the way) drew my attention to this shortish film some weeks ago, and I have been contemplating it ever since I sat down and watched it all the way through – it lasts for some 20 minutes.

It is an allegorical story about a kid discovering the joys of reading in a terrible dystopian future world in which books have become effectively illegal.   This isn’t a rerun of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451″, but it does deal with some of the same ideas as that highly depressing book did.

I shan’t say much more about this film, but leave it to you to discover for yourself what it is trying to say to us.    I shall merely say that the pace of the film somehow matches up exactly to the feeling one has when reading a gripping and well written book, be it a paper one or an electronic one.

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Now that you have seen this film, let us share any thoughts it may have brought to your mind – I can’t imagine it left you totally cold in any event.

So you want a protective cover for your ereader, but don’t want to spend a fortune on it?   Well the answer is to make it yourself.   Simple really.

Over the course of the years I have been writing this blog I have seen quite a few DIY ereader covers, bags, and so on, all good in their different ways, and of course, all very, very cheap.   So you save money and have the pleasure of protecting your precious ereader with the sweat of your brow – well, perhaps not all that much sweat really, but it will be all your own work, and thus unique to you and your ereader, which has to be fun.

This time I have found a video which leads you step by step through the process of making a very simple book cover for your ereader.   As you will see, it demands very little in the way of handicraft skill to make, just an ability to cut a reasonably straight line and know how to squeeze glue out of a tube effectively.

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E-Ink, the makers of the most used screen technology in the dedicated ereader world have produced a rather cheeky and funny video extolling the virtues of their screen system as compared to the back-lit screen used in (among others) the Apple iPad.

I was sent this video yesterday by the good folk at E-ink and once I had watched it I had to share it with you all here.   To be honest I loved this video, and also enjoyed the dig at the holy iPad and all other back-lit ereaders and Tablets.

In one funny video they manage to incorporate all that is good about E-ink screened ereaders and bad about the LCD type, and even worse, the iPad variety with all the distractions that they have.

So settle back and enjoy seeing how an ereader, such as the Kindle or Sony manages as compared to an iPad or any other Tablet…   A neat and amusing video that gives you enough information about the two systems to enable you to make up your own mind as to which system you would prefer as an ereader.

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Ray Bradbury, one of the most prolific and intriguing writers of Science Fiction and fantasy has died at the high old age of 91, and the world is a much poorer place as a result.

His writing has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember, not only the well known and highly successful books he wrote, but also many of the less well known ones… Many of which were downright scary and left lasting impressions in my mind. A good example of this is the short story he wrote about the spirit creatures who attend every accidental death. You know what I mean, whenever there is an accident, there will always be a crowd of people standing silently watching… Doing nothing, simply watching. That story said that these watchers were in fact spirits, come to take the soul of the victims of the accident who were dying.

Anyone who has been involved in any accident in a public place will recognize this.

The range of his writing is astounding, from classic Sci Fi such as the famous Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian Chronicles, through his strange stories around Carnivals…… He made me very scared of what he called Carnies (people who work in fairgrounds) when I was a kid.

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With the publication of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams effectively invented the ebook, as the eponymous guide was in fact an ereader, albeit a very large capacity one.

However, in 1993 he recorded a piece that was intended to be used as advertising for one of the original “real” ereaders, the PowerBook (nothing to do with Apple) and the work of one of the first ebook publishers, Voyager Expanded Books.

And now, as part of the celebration of Towel Day – on May 25^th – on which Adams fans all over the world celebrate his life and work, a competition was instituted by The Literary Platform to celebrate this day, and also to celebrate the fact that his work was being released in ebook form.

The competition was to set that talk into a video, which apparently had an enormous number of entries. In any event, the winner, whose work you can see below, was Gavin Edwards, who produced the superb video just below here.

So, sit back and enjoy Adams pleasing way of talking and this really rather enjoyable video too.

 Good eh?

Yesterday I wrote a post about the rumours that Amazon were about to launch a Kindle with a splendid patented front lighting system, and said how good that would be.  Blow me, if Barnes and Noble haven’t beaten Amazon to the draw here and have just announced the launch of their own front lit version of their Simple Touch Nook ereader, splendidly and memorably named (hang on while I go and check that name again….)  The Simple Touch Nook with GlowLight (now that is a name that flows,isn’t it?).

As you will see when you watch the video they have made (see below) extolling the virtues of this ereader, it is actually rather good, with very little Hot Spot Syndrome trouble, merely a slightly brighter wash of light at the top of the screen, reasonably enough, as that is where the LED’s are placed.

The main specs of this version of their latest ereader are almost the same as the standard Simple Touch Nook, except it is about 1 ounce lighter, which  is a rather  good achievement I feel.  By the way, they claim that you can go about 1 month between battery charges if you keep the WiFi turned off, try that with a Tablet!

As I commented in my post about the rumour of the front lit Kindle, Sony had a similar system on one of their earlier ereaders, (about 3 years ago),  which worked very well by and large.  The main difference being that the Sony front lights were either on,or off, no graduation possible.  Unlike this system from B &  N,which has a virtual slider on the screen that allows you to adjust the brightness of the lights from zero,to full blast.

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