The Kindle 2 week - part 4: the Authors Guild and the read-aloud feature

One interesting feature of Amazon's Kindle 2 is its text to speech function, or in other words Kindle 2 can read books aloud. This has also become an issue of dispute between Amazon and the Authors Guild.

Roy Blount Jr., the President of the Authors Guild explained in a column on the New York Times ("The Kindle Swindle?") that the Guild has a problem with the fact that although Amazon is paying royalties to the authors and publishers for the ebooks sold through the Kindle 2, it is not paying anyone for audio rights. The Guild said Amazon doesn't have the right to essentially turn e-books into audio books.

Blount Jr. explained that "What the guild is asserting is that authors have a right to a fair share of the value that audio adds to Kindle 2’s version of books."

Even though the function is actually based on a robotic voice reading the books and not professional readers like we usually have on audio books, it looks like Amazon decided not to fight the Guild ant to look for a compromise.

And it found one. The LA Times reported on February 28 that "Amazon lets publishers and writers disable Kindle 2's read-aloud feature".

Amazon, according to the article, said "it had already begun to alter its systems to give publishers and authors the choice to disable the text-to-speech function, and that they could decide for themselves whether it was in their commercial interests to leave it enabled."

We'll have to wait and see now how many authors and publishers will choose to leave it enabled and how many will cancel the option to hear a friendly robotic voice reading their story.

What we had on Kindle 2 week so far:

Part 3 - How much money it will make?

Part 2 - Bezos on the Daily Show

Part 1 - David Pouge and the final battle

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Monday's green books series: The Adventures of Nick the Ecologist and his Robot O-Zone (and a giveaway!)

Can a story about disappearing trees be both educational and fun? Well, with a robot named O-Zone that is traveling in the galaxy with his friend Nick in a solar powered spacecraft called the Gazoom everything is possible!

Our book for today is:

The Adventures of Nick the Ecologist and his Robot O-Zone: The Mystery of the Missing Trees

Author: Kevin J. Villeneuve

Kevin J. Villeneuve has been writing short stories since the age of 10. His passion for writing short adventure stories led him to the creation of Nick and O-Zone's universe at a very young age. Villeneuve is currently working on the second and third books of the adventure series, where once again, the dynamic duo will fight evil throughout the universe in their ultimate goal to preserve the environment. Villeneuve lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Publisher: iUniverse - Indigo

Published on: October 2007

Reading level: Ages 7-11

What it is about (from Amazon.com):
Nick and his best buddy, O-Zone the Robot, are both junior ecologists learning all about the delicate balance between living things and their environment on Earth. But Nick and O-Zone are also able to explore any galaxy they want through the amazing Gazoom, a solar-powered spaceship invented by Nick’s father.

Nick and O-Zone put their talents to use when they join the Galactic Science Squad, a secret team of astronauts and ecologists working to neutralize interplanetary evil forces. Far across the Universe, trees are suddenly disappearing from Planet Bark at an alarming rate, and Nick and O-Zone have only three days to solve the mystery before all the trees are gone forever. The daring duo must outsmart a group of no-good grown-ups, find the culprits behind the malicious plot, and return safely back to Earth before O-Zone’s power runs out!

Follow the adventurers to the end as they fight an intergalactic battle for the sake of all planets—and the future of children and robots everywhere.

Why you should get it:
1. Somehow I never got connected to adventure stories with robots and other sci-fi characteristics, but O-Zone is a different story. My age is not between 7-11, but I really enjoyed the story and found myself following the adventures of Nick and O-Zone the robot with great interest, not to mention my interest with the subject of the mystery - the disappearance of trees..

2. This book is both educational and entertaining and it's also an adventure with an environmental theme - can you ask for more?

3. The book is filled with great illustrations that complete the text beautifully and helps you for example to envision how a happy robot looks like.

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!

We are giving away our review copy of the book, and of course a tree will be planted for the copy. It will also come with our sticker (made of recycled paper) saying "One tree planted for this book."

How you can win? please add a comment below with an answer the following question: if you had a robot like O-zone and it could help you with one environmental issue you're having, what would it be? Submissions are accepted until Sunday, March 15, 12PM EST. The winner will be announced the following day.

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on our website's green resources section.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

"Green Beginnings" is going green with Eco-Libris

We're happy to announce on a new collaboration with the authors of a very special book: Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home.

We are very excited about our collaboration with the authors, Avrim and Vicki Topel, as this is not only a combination of a personal story and a green guide, but also a local success story that can help many others who are wondering how they can make their homes greener, but also a local green success story - it takes place in Kennett Square, PA, which is close by to our office in Newark, DE.

This book is following the journey Avrim and Vicki had while building a new green sustainable home from scratch, one that will be eventually awarded the USGBC’s LEED Silver and Energy Star Qualified Home designations in October, 2008.

Eco-Libris will be working with the authors to plant a tree for every sold copy of the book. Also, our sticker "One tree planted for this book" (made of recycled paper) will be provided with every purchase of the book.

Here's a more detailed description of the book from its website:

Understanding just what is behind this new, alternative way of living offers along with the remarkable benefits homeowners who live in such dwellings experience and enjoy is the intent of our efforts to spread the word about green living and change the world one reader at a time. When we began our journey into building a green home we were most fortunate that we had the time to learn and the right professionals to teach us about green building. Indeed, there is much to understand to make the most of one's efforts. In hindsight and upon completing our green home, we identified the most important aspects necessary to understand before one begins a green building project.

Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home provides homeowners, architects, contractors, and engineers a common understanding of that which they are about to undertake and empowers everyone involved in a project with a common vision and language to work with. Knowledge is power, and with the shared knowledge in our book, homeowners and professionals alike will become empowered to proceed with their green and sustainable homebuilding projects with confidence and clarity.

One of the most difficult and frustrating roadblocks to understanding the concepts behind successful green homebuilding is the written style and nature of the books and publications written about green homebuilding available in the marketplace today, written in technical jargon that is difficult for the average person to understand.

Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home is intentionally written in non-technical, plain English and targets persons with no previous construction experience. We've crafted a light, enjoyable read; a story, interspersed with lessons, in a day-by-day, step-by-step journal-like format that identifies the personalities of the participants as importantly as the action steps that result in a completed home. The book explains where and why this alternative approach to building originated, and will enlighten you with how the greater good of mankind is rewarded with each and every green and sustainable home completion occurs.

To illustrate precisely what this new construction method actually looks like, the book contains close to 100 professional photos in sequential order showing the construction process from ground-breaking until completion. And a glossary of green and sustainable construction terms and language is included as a quick reference for those terms that could hinder complete understanding of the text. Doing our best to provide the reader with the most valuable information we could come up with, we added a section of our book entitled "Reflections In Hindsight".

This portion of the book revisits our actual experience, and points out a number of areas in our homebuilding experience that we may have done differently had we had the knowledge and experience before hand. It was important to us to share these items with you, as our goal has always been to empower our readers with the most important understandings of each and every item in the entire process.

The book is not the only way Avrim and Vicki are sharing their story and educating people about green homes. They offer 90-minute educational tours of their home (up to 5 persons by appointment only - you can find more details on this web page. And soon they will also offer also offer a documentary video featuring the professional team that designed and built the house and themselves being interviewed as they tour the completed project in retrospect and discuss and review various components and stages of the project in detail.

We will soon have a review of "Green Beginnings", followed with a giveaway of a copy of the book, so stay tuned. You can read more about the book at www.greenbeginningsconsulting.com

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

All photos of the house are from the photos gallery on the books' website.

The Kindle 2 week - part 3: How much moeny it will make?

The Kindle 2 is not only an updated version of the Kindle, but also a money-making machine for Amazon according to analysts' estimates.

How much money? well, it depends which analysis you read. Greg Sandoval reports on CNET news ("More heady Wall Street predictions for Kindle 2") on all the figures that have thrown up in recent days:

Citigroup: Analyst Mark Mahaney published a report that predicted the Kindle 2, which he refers to as the “iPod of the Book World,” would generate $1.2 billion in revenue by 2010 (4.4% of Amazon's revenues). How did he reached $1.2 billion? check out his calculations (published on MediaMemo).

Collins Stewart LLC: analyst Sandeep Aggarwal said Amazon will generate US$1.4 billion from Kindle sales and book downloads by 2010. Collins, according to Sandoval, also compared the Kindle 2 to the Sony eBook Reader in 13 different parameters and concluded that "Except for (the) touch-screen and built-in reading light offered by Sony, the Kindle is a much better device."

And one more - Barclays Capital: Analyst Douglas Anmuth estimated more than 1 million Kindles may be on college campuses by 2012, generating an additional $700 million in revenue for Amazon. Total revenue from Kindle sales and downloads may reach $3.7 billion by that time, he said.

If you're wondering how many Kindle devices were sold so far, you won't find the reply on Amazon, but Citigrouop Analyst Mark Mahaney estimated Amazon sold 500,000 devices last year.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Mixed news about the Amazon Rainforest

We have both good and bad news about the Amazon Rainforest this week.

Let's start with the good news: The World Bank approved last Thursday $1.3 billion loan to help Brazil's environmental management and climate change efforts, with a focus on fighting deterioration of the Amazon rain forest and renewable energy sources.

The World Bank told Reuters that "the loan will support Brazil's ongoing efforts to improve its environmental management system and integrate sustainability concerns in the development agenda of key sectors such as forest management, water and renewable energy."

The loan is going to be disbursed in two parts: a first tranche of $800 million that will be provided immediately and a second tranche of $500 million upon fulfillment of the projects goals.

This loan is provided despite appeals of several Brazilian organizations and social networks to the World Bank to postpone the decision on the loan. Their argue was that prior loans have not adequately addressed environmental concerns and that this loan has the potential to continue this trend.

Well, I hope these groups are wrong, but at the same time I wish their concerns will be taken seriously as it seems the money is needed to be allocated in the best way possible given the other news about the implications of drought on the Amazon rain forest.

On the same day (last Thursday) a new study was published in the journal Science. This 30-year study, a global collaboration between more than 40 institutions, has found that the Amazon rain forest is surprisingly sensitive to drought and even a moderate drought can cause it to release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You can read further details about this study about it on the Science Daily's report.

We'll keep following and reporting on the status of the Amazon Rainforest, hoping to have more and more good news and less and less bad news.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

The Kindle 2 week - part 2: Bezos on the Daily Show

We're continuing with our special Kindle 2 week, where we cover the Amazon's new e-book device that was launched last week.

Today we have a special gem: Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO is coming to the Daily Show to chat with John Stewart on Kindle 2, where he is revealing one important advantage of the device: you to read with one hand.

Now, seriously, this might be the funniest piece you'll see on Kindle 2, and maybe even one of the best talks I saw on the Daily Show (one of my favorite shows..). Still it includes some interesting insights on the Kindle and how people, like John Stewart, who enjoys the "comfortable low tech" characteristics of books see it.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jeff Bezos

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

The Kindle 2 week - part 1: David Pouge and the final battle

Amazon.com released last week Kindle 2, the new version of its e-book reader. Given Amazon's growing role in the book market and the influence Kindle has on this market, we decided to try and bring you a couple of interesting and hopefully unique perspectives about the new Kindle.

So for the next seven days, we will bring you each day a little Kindle piece. Hopefully by next Thursday we will have a better understanding of the big Kindle picture.

On the first part we invite you to get to watch this video, where David Pouge, the New York Times technology columnist, reviews the new Kindle 2 e-reader and wonders if e-books will make physical books obsolete. He gets an e-book and a paper book into an imaginary bottle you have to watch - it makes some very good points and it's also very funny. You're also welcome to read his column "The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now".



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net