Technology

There is no longer any doubt that digital content is an absolute imperative for book publishers. With the rise of mobile devices and new digital distribution platforms like Oyster and Scribd, publishers need the digital chops required to make their books available everywhere and anywhere there readers are. Determining which digital products will best engage readers and how to get those products to market at scale remains a challenge.

Pearson has become the latest blue-chip company to increase its venture investments, committing $50m to education start-ups in Africa and Asia. The world's largest education company by revenues, which owns the Financial Times, is expanding a fund it set up in 2012 with $15m to invest in companies focused on improving low-cost private education.

Many media and telecoms groups, including Sky, the pay-television company, and publisher Reed Elsevier, are opting for venture investments in an attempt to increase innovation and growth. Bertelsmann, the family-owned German media group, has committed at least $100m to education start-ups.

Popular blogger Audrey Watters says she is "furious and curious" about the state of ed tech. That energy is on full display in The Monsters of Education Technology, a self-published collection of talks and addresses the Hack Education founder gave during 2014.

I caught up with Watters this week via phone to talk about the often-biting views encapsulated in Monsters. Our discussion focused on six quotes from the book, which are in bold type below. The transcript of our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

A few weeks back we posted a video of Ikea's new breakthrough in reading technology, the "bookbook". One of our commenters (along with Daring Fireball's John Gruber) pointed out the connection to this now classic Norwegian comedy sketch, showing that every new technology has support problems with early adopters.

For years, people have been forecasting the death of the e-reader. Ever since more flashy, multi-function tablets became mainstream - prompted by the launch of Apple's iPad in 2010 - black-and-white e-readers with their matt e-ink screens have come to be seen as poor relations.

Indeed, earlier this year, Sony was forced to admit defeat in the e-reader market, withdrawing its Librie series of devices from stores in the US, then from Europe and Australia, and finally its home turf, Japan.

Today Boundless launched another new way for entrepreneurial educators and thought leaders to engage students in a more modern way. The company's newest software opens up its content creation platform for authors to create textbooks that can be accessed through Boundless, which has been used by more than 3 million students and educators. Boundless's "new standard" for academic publishing is a major step in the company's expanding vision for changing the face of what has been a (financially) burdensome aspect of higher education: the existing, expensive academic textbook cartel.

Kobo plans to launch a new eReader with a high-resolution E Ink display and a water and dust-proof case. It's called the Kobo Aura H2O, and it recently passed through the FCC. Now German eBook blog Alles Book has found a spec sheet, picture, and alleged price and launch date.

If the leaked info is accurate, the Kobo Aura H2O is coming September 1st for $179.

Barnes & Noble will be unveiling their new Nook hardware on Wednesday morning in NYC, but I won't be there. Instead, I plan to be out in front of my local B&N store at 9am tomorrow, waiting for it to open. My inside sources at B&N have told me that the new stock has already been delivered to stores. The in-store demos are going to be reset Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, in time for the new hardware to be sold when the stores open.

Mobile e-reading needs to be much more than just a way to access a library of books, they must focus on the experience around reading itself. This is where social and messaging features play a major role. Social media is an element that has, so far, been mostly neglected in this space. By giving readers the opportunity to share their favourite quotes, what they are reading and message favourite passages to friends, e-reading apps are mimicking the social aspect of book clubs.

Kobo quietly rolled out a new update last week for their Android app, and it's one worth our attention. In addition to the usual bug fixes and other improvements, the new app boasts support for Epubs with embedded audio, faster loading of Epub files, and new stability improvements for fixed layout Epub ebooks.

According to the changelog, the app also now has an immersive reading mode which many other reading apps have added over the past year.