Author: Dr. Bill

For the first time, eBook sales have passed physical book sales, as of the last quarter. It looks like we are entering the time of eBooks for real!

eBook Revenues Top Hardcover

“Net sales revenue from eBooks have surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012.

According to the March Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult eBook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the first quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while eBooks logged $220.4 million.

Here’s more from the report (Q1 2012 chart embedded above): “In Q1 2012, net sales revenue for eBooks was higher than that for Hardcover; this represents a switch of positions in the category vs Q1 2011. In both quarters, however, Trade Paperback remained a clear #1 in net sales revenue despite some erosion. While eBooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last year – as some experts have said, tied to ongoing popularity and acquisition of smartphones and mobile devices.”

At the same time, the YA/Children’s category saw hardcover growth. Hardcover revenue in this category was $187.7 million for Q1, up nearly 67 percent. eBook sales in the same category skyrocketed almost 233 percent to $64.3 million.”

Amazon has gotten all the top labels to allow them to carry their music in it’s store, and support their system.

Amazon’s music cloud is licensed by all top labels

“Amazon’s cloud music service is fully licensed by the top-four record labels, numerous sources have told CNET.

The labels and Amazon aren’t talking, but my sources say Amazon is expected to roll out new features for the company’s cloud-music offering in the United States sometime in July.

We reported on Tuesday that Amazon had wrapped up cloud deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI, and was in negotiations with Warner Music Group. Information is coming in now that Warner Music Group was actually among the first to sign.

The ways in which the licenses will change Amazon’s Cloud Drive or Cloud Player are still unclear, but sources said one feature Amazon will likely offer is Scan and Match.

When Amazon launched its cloud music service last year, the retailer required users to upload each of their individual song files to the company’s servers. For people with a lot of music, this was a hassle. Amazon now has the rights to scan each user’s hard drive to see what songs they possess. Then the merchant can just give users to access to copies of the songs stored on Amazon’s library. They’re listening to the same song but not their own song files.

To distribute a song this way required a license because to do otherwise is a copyright violation, the labels have argued.”

I am bummed about this… unless the special area, or app, that they create is well publicized. Sigh.

Apple Gives Podcasts a Gentle Push Out of iTunes

“Podcasts were supposed to be a big deal several years ago, but that boom never happened. Now there’s at least anecdotal evidence that the format is actually picking up steam, as creators, listeners and advertisers warm to the format.

So why have podcasts disappeared from the new version of iTunes that Apple started showing to developers this week?

Because Apple plans on giving the recordings their own bit of digital turf.
People familiar with Apple’s plans tell me that when its new iOS 6 software becomes widely available this fall, podcasts will have their own app, where users will be able to discover, download and play them on mobile devices. Users who access iTunes via laptop and desktop machines will still find them in that version of iTunes, though.

Apple has made a similar housekeeeping move before: Last year, it broke up the iTunes player app into separate video and music apps. And when it launched iBooks in conjunction with the iPad in 2010, it made the book reader a separate app as well.

The iTunes U lecture series has also gotten its own app, though you can still access the downloads through the main iTunes player on mobile devices.

Apple also required iBook buyers to use the specialized app to buy their texts. But it has continued to lump all of its audio and video together in the iTunes store. So the move to push podcasts completely into their own space may signal an effort to put iTunes on a diet, something many Apple fans have asked for.

More evidence for that theory: A report that Apple will also move its iTunes U out of iTunes, too.

No comment from Apple.”

Obviously, to those of us who do podcasts (netcasts) it is, and has been, a “big thing” and I think the genre is alive and well. But iTunes is a BIG outlet! We’ll see what this means!

Cross-Posted from the Hand Held Hack: Wow! How cool is this? Hold this device up to view a person using sign language, and get a vocalized version of the “translation!”

Prototype Device Translates Sign Language

“ScienceDaily (June 1, 2012) — Too often, communication barriers exist between those who can hear and those who cannot. Sign language has helped bridge such gaps, but many people are still not fluent in its motions and hand shapes.

Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH’s engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and prototype for MyVoice, a device that reads sign language and translates its motions into audible words. Recently, MyVoice earned first place among student projects at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) — Gulf Southwest Annual Conference.

The development of MyVoice was through a collaborative senior capstone project for engineering technology students (Anthony Tran, Jeffrey Seto, Omar Gonzalez and Alan Tran) and industrial design students (Rick Salinas, Sergio Aleman and Ya-Han Chen). Overseeing the student teams were Farrokh Attarzadeh, associate professor of engineering technology, and EunSook Kwon, director of UH’s industrial design program.

MyVoice’s concept focuses on a handheld tool with a built-in microphone, speaker, soundboard, video camera and monitor. It would be placed on a hard surface where it reads a user’s sign language movements. Once MyVoice processes the motions, it then translates sign language into space through an electronic voice. Likewise, it would capture a person’s voice and can translate words into sign language, which is projected on its monitor.”

Cool looking new computers from Discount HDTV company Vizio. They look VERY cool! High tech goodness!

Vizio’s Beautiful Sci-Fi Computer Fleet Lands Now for Cheapish (Updated: Hands On)

“It takes a lot to make us genuinely excited about a laptop, or even worse, another desktop PC. But cheap TV king Vizio’s done just that. We loved them at CES, and now the all-in-one and superskinny laptop line’s official.

The 24 and 27 inch all-in-one PCs, which borrow enough of Apple’s picture frame design without looking like just another imitator. In fact, it looks pretty stellar, the result of two years of design. The gleaming aluminum neck, the entirety of the guts packed into the tiny base, the Magic Trackpad knockoff—the thing’s form is terrific.

And for a highly reasonable $900 and $1100, respectively, you’ll get a damn good thin rig: Ivy Bridge CPUs, Nvidia’s latest Kepler graphics, USB 3.0, 1920 x 1080 displays, and a maximum terabyte hard drive plus a 32 GB SSD. On the software side, you’ll appreciate an installation of Windows 7 with zero bloatware—no awful photo editors and video players you’d drink blood over actually using. You’ll get none of that here—nothing installed at all—which is an enormous relief.

The entire thing doubles as a 1080p TV, with two HDMI inputs—hey now, nice for a dorm or bedroom!”

Official version 4.0 of Skype for Linux is available NOW!

From the Skype for Linux Blog:

“First off, we’d like to thank our Skype for Linux users for your patience awaiting Skype 4.0 for Linux, codenamed ‘Four Rooms for Improvement,’ which is now available. With this release, we have finally filled the gap with our other desktop clients and we are now making many of the latest Skype features, as well as a lot of UI improvements, available to our penguin lovers.

You will find four major changes in this release:

• We have a new Conversations View where users can easily track all of their chats in a unified window. Those users who prefer the old view can disable this in the Chat options;
• We have a brand new Call View;
• Call quality has never been better thanks to several investments we made in improving audio quality; and
• We’ve worked on improving video call quality and have also extended support for more cameras.

Of course, we have loads of other small improvements and fixes. As you can imagine, the list is so long it would take too much time to write it all, but some are worthy of mention:

• improved chat synchronization
• new presence and emoticon icons
• the ability to store and view phone numbers in a Skype contact’s profile
• much lower chance Skype for Linux will crash or freeze
• chat history loading is now much faster
• support for two new languages: Czech (flag:cz) and Norwegian (flag:no)

Note, the very first time you start Skype for Linux 4.0 might take a few minutes (depending on how lengthy your chat history is). Please do not close Skype during this time. Subsequent starts will load much more quickly.”

Yammer will get a reported 1.2 Billion dollars in it’s sale to M$. Insiders suspect Microsoft is trying to shore up its Office product to update it to use social components. Yammer is sort of a “Facebook for Business.” I have an account there and watch discussions between fellow virtualization geeks. In the last nine months, Microsoft revenue from their Office product division is 17.7 Billion.