Alexander

Is the e-reader doomed? According to Matt Alexander on The Loop, it might just be on its way out as tablets get better and better. Alexander’s argument basically boils down to the fact that e-ink is an intermediate step, a necessary compromise between readability and display quality. E-ink is evolving toward being able to present [...]

Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the "Harry Potter" novels, is set to introduce another major series. "Infinity Ring," a seven-book series on time travel with an online game component, will begin its rollout in September, the publisher announced. The first book, "A Mutiny in Time," will be written by James Dashner, the bestselling author of "The Maze Runner." As it did with "The 39 Clues," a multimedia series first released in 2008, Scholastic will promote "Infinity Ring" to try to continue the momentum it started more than a decade ago when

Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), outlined a strategy for the future of the Web in a series of papers and articles published between 1998 and 2001. He observed that while there was a wealth of information available for people to explore on the Web, computers had difficulty extracting information from it. The Web consists largely of free-form text, and computers have great difficulty understanding human language. While search engines can index the Web, a human being is required to interpret the search results. You may be able to surf the Web, but your computer can’t. The value of the

Last month, I attended the London Book Fair and came home with new thoughts on the future of e-books. In particular, an in-booth presentation by DNL eBooks’ Peter Kent—author of many books including “SEO for Dummies” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Internet”—combined interesting statistics and Kent’s opinion on e-books’ future. Of course, Kent’s affiliation with DNL eBooks should be kept in mind, as the vendor provides a 3-D e-book technology (that incorporates Adobe Flash) through a software download for personal computers. (The technology was used in the Avon [a HarperCollins imprint] e-book release of “Lady Amelia’s Secret Lover,” which featured embedded video

Tim Spalding first launched LibraryThing.com in August 2005 as a means for bibliophiles to catalog their book collections and network with other passionate readers on the Internet. Now, 55,000 registered users later and countless visitors later, the site is a hit around the globe. In May, Abebooks.com, an online marketplace for books, based in Victoria, Canada, purchased a 40 percent stake in LibraryThing.com. Spalding, its 35-year-old founder and president, chatted recently with Book Business Extra! about the past, present and future of this unique site for book lovers. Book Business Extra!: What do you see as the benefit for someone coming to