The Future of Publishing

PART ONE: The behemoth that is AMAZON

The e-book has been called the biggest change to publishing since the printing press, and perhaps its biggest challenge. And although digital publishing is still a relatively small business in Australia, sales of ebooks and digital reading tablets are expected to bust all previous sales records this Christmas.

So does this mean death for the humble hard copy book, will we all be reading only from screens in years to come? It’s a stupefying question that publishers and technorati have been pitching back and forth  for the past 5 years, can paper, print and pixels live together?

Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995, twelve years later in November 2007, Amazon introduced the Kindle ebook reader and promptly began selling ebooks. By July 2010, Amazon ebook sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, ebooks overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing ebooks, Amazon.com now sells more ebooks than all print books – hardcover and paperback – combined ::

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Samsung Phablet: The Galaxy Note Set to Sell 10 Million Units in 2012

Reuters Jeremy Wagstaff describes it as “a piece of toast” it’s wearing labels like “a device for elephants and a throwback to the good old brick of the 1980s” Snickering aside, Samsung has sold 5 million Galaxy Note phone/tablets and plans on selling 10 million units this year.

Galaxy Note is much more than a freak hit! Tech-consumer, design experts and gadget analysts reckon the surprise success of the “phablet” marks a much deeper shift in the fast-paced world of mobile devices. Launched in late November 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Note is a standout product. The most obvious thing about the Note is its size. Its 5.3 inch screen is almost as wide as the iPhone’s screen is long.

…then there’s the stylus. Apple’s co-founder, the late great Steve Jobs famously ridiculed the idea of using a pen to interact with a screen, Samsung however has embraced pointy ended accoutrements, they’ve partnered with Japan’s übercool Wacom, the market leader in digital pen technology, to come up with something less clunky than, well chunky!? Granted the stylus or s-pen is still kind of chunkyish, try writing or sketching with your finger!! Read the full article »»»»

Google to Open Online Tablet PC Store

Our favourite internet behemoth – Google – is planning to open an online store to sell tablet PCs directly to consumers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Google’s online store would offer tablets made by Samsung and Asus based on Google’s Android software, according to the WSJ report.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone – Nexus One – directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.

Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc.

But Apple still dominates the market for touch-screen tablet computers with its two-year old iPad. Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is based on the open-source Android code, but the device features a customized interface that does not use many Google services.

Google may co-brand some of the tablets sold through the store and has considered subsidizing the cost of future tablets to make them more competitive with the Kindle Fire, according to the Journal report. It is unclear when Google plans to open the store.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G: The First Australian 4G Tablet, Finally A Workable Alternative To Broadband!!!

Telstra and Samsung have joined forces to introduce the first 4G tablet to Australia, the Samsung Galaxy 8.9 with 4G. Finally a useable alternative to broadband with Samsung’s tethered 4G goodness bringing high speed internet to the road warriors amongst us.

Along with the Tab 8.9 Telstra also offers two other 4G devices, the HTC Velocity smart phone and the USB 4G Dongle for data access on the go, but the Tab 8.9 is by far the most exciting 4G device to hit Australian shores so far.

The Galaxy Tab 8.9 sits right in the middle of the performance curve as far as tablets are concerned, faster than cheaper tablets on the market but just a little behind the premium price tablets such as the ASUS Transformer Prime. A well rounded tablet, the 1.5Ghz dual core ARM processor provides plenty of speed while sipping power. With add on keyboards, docking stations along with 3rd party Galaxy gadgets the functionality is only limited by your budget.

Aakash $45 PC Tablet Clocks 1.4 Million Sales

Back in October 2011 we spruked the Indian Governments unveiling of it’s prototype touchscreen, tablet computer, the Aakash Tablet PC. The Indian Governments foresight into computing was admirable, as more data is migrated to the cloud simple web-enabled platforms such as tablet-pc’s will replace the bloated desktop and laptop hardware architectures of today, the Indian Government apparently got the premise that the future is mobile.

Since it’s release 2 weeks ago, the world’s cheapest tablet computer has clocked 1.4 million bookings since it was put up for sale online two weeks ago in India.

Bookings for the long-awaited Aakash, priced at 2,500 rupees – $US45 – kicked off on December 14, two months after it was unveiled as the “computer for the masses” Read the full article »»»»