The Digital Reader

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• Amazon Adds to Speculation that Kindle Unlimited Might Drop Exclusivity Requirement
• Trekstor Launches First Tablet Based in Intel’s Reference Design
• Sherlock Holmes is in the Public Domain – Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case
• HarperCollins, PRH Adopt the Lexile Book Rating System
• The Window to Request an eBook DMCA Exception Ends Today

Amazon Adds to Speculation that Kindle Unlimited Might Drop Exclusivity Requirement Posted: 03 Nov 2014 04:00 PM PST Whispers have been going around for close to a month now that Amazon might be considering dropping its requirement for exclusivity for any title in KDP Select, and now Amazon is adding fuel to the fire. Daniel Slater, Amazon’s Independent Publishing principal, was speaking at the Ninc conference a couple weeks ago when he was asked about Kindle Unlimited (I just now read about it). Porter Anderson quotes him: Slater pointed out that Kindle Unlimited is “a very new programme” — launched in July, in competition with other “all you can read” subscription services Oyster and Scribd — and said that Seattle is watching KU’s development and reactions to it carefully. “It might be possible that we’d look at that,” he said in reference to the controversial exclusivity component of the programme. Is that real interest, do you think, or is it just the usual non-definite answer one offers when cornered? If it’s the later then I am guilty of following Anderson into clickbaiting, but if it is the former then authors are going to want to pay attention. One of the chief objections many authors have with Kindle Unlimited (and Kindle Owner’s Lending Library before it) was that it required authors to forgo selling ebooks in other ebookstores.  Depending on the market, that could represent a lot of money. And even without the money, many authors have a principled objection to offering any single retailer exclusivity and would love to see that requirement go away. So do you think this quote is real? And does anyone have more information on what else Daniel Slater said? The post Amazon Adds to Speculation that Kindle Unlimited Might Drop Exclusivity Requirement appeared first on The Digital Reader.

Trekstor Launches First Tablet Based in Intel’s Reference Design Posted: 03 Nov 2014 01:02 PM PST Intel’s two-month-old program to develop reference design tablets bore its first fruit today when the German gadget maker Trekstor announced its latest tablet. The Intel Reference Design for Android (IRDA) program offers device makers a compete set of tablet hardware and a matching Android firmware which the device maker can have produced by a 3rd-party. The tablets come with guaranteed software updates and the promise that the design will pass Google certification. And now Trekstor is the first to take advantage of the program. The TrekStor SurfTab xintron i 7.0 is a fairly ordinary looking  Android tablet with an Intel Atom Z3735G Bay Trail CPU with 1GB RAM. It has 8GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, a pair of cameras (5MP and 1.26MP), Wifi, GPS, and Bluetooth. The 7″ display has a screen resolution of 1280 x 800, and this tablet measures 9mm thin, and it weighs 308 grams. It’s going to run Android 4.4 KitKat when it ships, but Trekstor has already promised that Intel will be releasing an update in the near future which will add Android 5.0 Lollipop. Amazon Germany is already taking orders for the tablet for 135 euros, but it isn’t in stock yet. That is a moderately high price tag for a budget tablet, even in Germany, but this tablet is probably powerful enough to justify the price. Amazon is selling the 6″ Fire tablet for 99 euros and the Fire HD 7 for 129 euros (it’s on sale), so you might wonder if the 6″ model is the better value. But if you value power and performance, you’d be better off with the new Trekstor tablet. I have a Toshiba tablet which has the same CPU.  That $109 tablet is more powerful than you would expect from the price tag, and I expect that Trekstor tablet will have a similar performance. Liliputing The post Trekstor Launches First Tablet Based in Intel’s Reference Design appeared first on The Digital Reader.

Sherlock Holmes is in the Public Domain – Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case Posted: 03 Nov 2014 12:03 PM PST A two-year-old legal battle over the copyright status of the Sherlock Holmes corpus came to a quiet end today when the US Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of the Conan Doyle estate. The fight started last February when author, Holmesian scholar, and attorney Leslie Klinger filed a lawsuit against the estate of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when the estate asked for a license fee for the anthology of Holmes stories which Klinger was editing. The estate had collected fees for Klinger’s previous anthologies, just like it had for other works based on Holmes and Watson, but this time around Klinger decided he would rather pay a lawyer than pay the Conan Doyle estate’s Danegeld. Klinger (or rather his lawyer) won the lawsuit in December 2013, and then they won the appeal before the 7th Circuit in June of this year. The district court judge ruled, and the appeals court concurred, that since much of Conan Doyle’s original stories and books about Holmes and Watson were in the public domain any detail in one of those stories could legally be used by any writer without having to get permission. The Conan Doyle estate had previously extracted license fees from publishers, movie studios, and tv networks under the legal theory that since some of the stories were under copyright, the characters in the stories were under copyright as well. But as we can see from  today’s Supreme Court decision, that legal theory simply doesn’t hold water. The estate will have to content themselves with the earnings from the 10 remaining Holmes stories still under copyright in the US. (Curiously, Conan Doyle’s entire body of work went into the public domain in his native UK in 2001, seventy years after he died.) LA Times Thanks, Savannah! images by Trekkiest, david__jones The post Sherlock Holmes is in the Public Domain – Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case appeared first on The Digital Reader.

HarperCollins, PRH Adopt the Lexile Book Rating System Posted: 03 Nov 2014 01:13 PM PST Pop Quiz: Would you trust a book rating system that told you that Sports Illustrated for Kids’ Awesome Athletes! was a more complex read than Jane Eyre, Huckleberry Finn, or To Kill a Mockingbird? If the answer is no, then congratulations. You’ve just proven yourself smarter than many US publishers. A new press release crossed my desk today which shared the news that a number of publishers, including HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, will soon be joining Macmillan, S&S, Scholastic, etc in providing Lexile scores for their children’s titles. Originally invented in the 1980s, Lexile is a system for  assigning a numerical reading score to books. It’s pitched as a better alternative to the more holistic reading level assessment historically used by teachers and librarians  which replaces an expert’s opinion with a mechanical calculation. Lexile’s creator, MetaMetrics, uses a proprietary algorithm which analyzes sentence length and vocabulary of the text of a book and come up with a number between zero and 1,600. The scores can be matched up to grade levels, more or less: Having been adopted as part of the Common Core standards, Lexile is having its day in the sun. Publishers are adopting it left and right, schools are using it to buy books, and everything is peachy. Or at least it would be, if not for the fact that Lexile is – at best – flawed. While it is indeed possible to guesstimate the reading level of a text (MSWord and other office apps have a similar feature) the algorithm used to generate a Lexile score frequently results in scores that simply don’t make any sense. For example, the Lexile score for Sports Illustrated is actually higher than the one for Jane Eyre. With a score of only 870, To Kill a Mockingbird is only a fourth-grade read, while a children’s book like Mr. Popper's Penguins (with a respectable Lexile score of 910) is deemed more complex. Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, on the other hand, scored a weak 590, about the same as Curious George Gets a Medal. The New Republic reported on Lexile last fall, and they posted this handy graphic which illustrates some of the more questionable scores. I confess that I have not read most of the books listed, so I can’t comment on their difficulty, but any system that would rate the first volume of Lord of the Rings as being less complex than Mr Poppers Penguins is not one I would trust. And I’m not the only one; even the creators of the Common Core admit that Lexile is flawed: As the Common Core Standards Initiative officially puts it, "until widely available quantitative tools can better account for factors recognized as making such texts challenging, including multiple levels of meaning and mature themes, preference should likely be given to qualitative measures of text complexity when evaluating narrative fiction intended for students in grade 6 and above." But even here, the final goal is a more complex algorithm; qualitative measurement fills in as a flawed stopgap. And yet it’s still being adopted widely and “recognized as the global standard for matching readers with texts”, which is not at all an exaggeration. While researching this story I found many graphics which explain how to use Lexile scores to match books up with the various grade levels. Even Scholastic posted one. I’m sure you’ve heard of New Math, right? Welcome to New Reading. To be fair to the publishers, they might only be adopting Lexile scores because teachers and librarians asked for the scores. And some of the teachers and librarians might not have a choice; use of the scores might be mandated by their school board or principal. But even if that is the case, I would much rather see the publishers explain why they weren’t using Lexile by pointing out the issues to everyone who asked. If they really see themselves as the bulwark of book culture then this is exactly the kind of thing that they should be defending against. image by JD Hancock The post HarperCollins, PRH Adopt the Lexile Book Rating System appeared first on The Digital Reader.

The Window to Request an eBook DMCA Exception Ends Today Posted: 03 Nov 2014 07:21 AM PST Every three years the US Copyright Office invites the public to suggest new exemptions to the DMCA, and as Ars Technica and TeleRead reminded us last week our chance to request an exemption for ebook DRM ends today, 3 November. Much to my chagrin, almost the entire 2 plus month long public query period slipped by under my radar. And that is a shame, because this time around I would have loved to organize a campaign to promote a DMCA exemption for stripping ebook DRM. And as the past three years has shown us, consumers really could have used that exemption- and not just so we can buy ebooks on one platform and use them on another. While Chris proposed that the exemptions should enable “consumers to crack ebook DRM for purposes of archival and platform interoperability”, I don’t see that as having any chance at all – there’s no similar exemption for movies or other content. What’s more, I also don’t think it’s really necessary nor is there any tangible benefit to publishers to support it – not when they can sit back, do nothing, and let those who want to strip DRM continue to thumb our noses at the law. But an exemption for the sole purpose of removing DRM to rescue content after the retailer shuts down or DRM servers have been turned off? Now that is another matter. This more limited exemption might pass muster.  I’m basing that opinion on the fact that a similar exemption was granted in 2006 and then renewed in 2010. The older exemption expired in 2012, and it only covered DRMed software that required a dongle for verification purposes, but it did enable users to bypass the DRM when their dongle was obsolete and nonfunctional. Similarly, if we had an ebook exemption, readers would have the right to strip DRM from their ebooks when Fictionwise closed. They’d be able to strip DRM when Diesel eBooks, JManga, or BooksonBoard closed. And more importantly, they would have the legal right to strip DRM when the DRM servers are turned off. In the past 3 years no fewer than 4 ebook DRM servers have gone away. Amazon turned off Mobipocket in late 2011, Microsoft shut down MSReader in 2011, and Barnes & Noble shuttered both eReader and eBookwise when they closed Fictionwise in late 2012. Three of those four formats were major ebook platforms before the Kindle Store, and thanks to the investment readers had made over the previous decade they were still pretty important even up to the day the servers were shut off. Tell me that doesn’t cry out for an exemption, I dare you. There isn’t enough time for me to feel comfortable writing a petition, but if you file one, please let me know. I have a few ideas on how to promote the petition and line up support from groups like the EFF and public figures like Cory Doctorow. Here are a few details from Ars Technica on what happens next: Those considering filing should read the Copyright Office’s webpage regarding the rulemaking, check their proposed template (Word file), and read the Federal Register notice that goes into detail on what they’re looking for. To upload a petition, do so via the submission page. Once the petitions are submitted, it’s the beginning of a months-long process until the actual rules come out. The Copyright Office will ask for “evidentiary filings,” then allow opponents of the exemptions to respond, and then schedule public hearings on the proposed exemptions. image  by gaelx The post The Window to Request an eBook DMCA Exception Ends Today appeared first on The Digital Reader.

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Today's Kindle Books

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• More Bargain and Free Books for 11-3-14
• More ENT Deals for 11-3-14
• More Ereader Deals for 11-3-14
• Book Of The Day – Hard Target
• Bargain and Free Books for 11-3-14

More Bargain and Free Books for 11-3-14 Posted: 03 Nov 2014 06:06 AM PST Need more reading material? Here's another set of 3 bargain books and 2 free books. You can read Kindle books wherever you are and on any device with the Free Kindle App – you don’t even have to own a Kindle to use the app! BARGAIN BOOKS Whispers from the Grave by Kim Murphy Rating: 4.2 Stars Genre: Paranormal Price: $0.99 Save $3.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Whispers from the Grave – Nook Whispers from the Grave – Kobo “An exceptional mixture of mystery, ghosts, and romance… skillfully intertwines the present with the past and brings history to life.” -Susan Mobley, Romantic Times BOOKreviews Award-Winning Author The Virginia Plantation Poplar Ridge is sprawling, secluded, and foreboding. Chris Olson is immediately swept into its somber history and an inexplicable, electrifying passion for Geoff Cameron, her best friend’s brother. Dreams of a Confederate soldier who strongly resembles Geoff and a haunting one-eyed scout cloud her mind further. Through the eyes of the long-dead Margaret, Chris witnesses mysterious events shrouded in the conflict of the Civil War, until little by little, she uncovers Margaret’s dark and terrible secret—and Geoff’s connection to the enchanting woman from the past. ****************************************** Secret Maneuvers by Jessie Lane Rating: 4.3 Stars Genre: Contemporary Romance Price: $0.99 Save $3.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Secret Maneuvers – Nook Secret Maneuvers – Apple iBooks Secret Maneuvers- Kobo “I can not say enough how great this book is! Jessie Lane is a master story teller who wrote a book with pain, grit, love, and survival.” -B.E. Love Some mistakes from the past haunt us forever… unless fate steps in with a second chance. One 'Dear John' letter haunted Bobby Baker's every living moment. It was the letter he'd stupidly written to his high school sweetheart, Belle, right after he had left to join the Army. The letter in which he'd told her that he wasn't so sure they were ready for forever yet. Before he could let her know that the letter, and his second thoughts, were nothing more than a mistake, she disappeared from the small Georgia town they had both been raised in. Fifteen years after the letter, Belle unknowingly walked back into Bobby's life when her job as an ATF Agent forced her to work with a group of men secretly headed by the CIA to help her track down whoever was involved in funneling black market weapons to a drug cartel in Mexico. Bobby planned to use this mission to try to soothe Belle's hurt feelings while proving to her that their love was meant to be forever. He would use every dirty trick he'd learned since he had joined the Army to maneuver her back into his life for the long haul. Belle was not making it easy, though, as she continued to keep him at arm's length in the hopes that mistakes of her own would never come to light. ****************************************** I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Jeffrey Miller Rating: 4.6 Stars Genre: Contemporary Fiction Price: $0.99 Save $3.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". “Jeffrey Miller writes with ease and captures the Illinois Valley area perfectly intertwining fictional characters in this thought provoking story.” -Gloria Mindock, editor of Červená Barva Press Award-Winning Author Carol Johnson believes her husband is keeping a deep dark secret from her, but Carol also has a secret which could destroy their marriage. A few days before Christmas, both of their secrets collide with each other along with the forces of nature and fate following a Christmas party and the worst snowstorm in decades. ============================================================ FREE BOOKS Please make sure the price says "Kindle Price $0.00″ before clicking “Buy”. If it says "Prime Members $0.00″ “read for free”, it is NO LONGER FREE. All books are free at the time they are posted but are subject to change back to full price at any time. If you are outside of the United States, these books may not be free. Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell Rating: 4.1 Stars Genre: Mystery Price: $0.00 Save $11.25 Subject to change back to full price at any time. Take the Monkeys and Run – Apple iBooks Take the Monkeys and Run – Kobo USA Today Bestselling Author Film lover Barbara Marr is a typical suburban mom living the typical suburban life in her sleepy little town of Rustic Woods, Virginia. Typical, that is until she sets out to find the missing link between a bizarre monkey sighting in her yard and the bone chilling middle-of-the-night fright fest at the strangely vacant house next door. When Barb talks her two friends into some seemingly innocent Charlie's Angels-like sleuthing, they stumble upon way more than they bargained for and uncover a piece of neighborhood history that certain people would kill to keep on the cutting room floor. ****************************************** The White Tree by Edward W. Robertson Rating: 4.0 Stars Genre: Fantasy Price: $0.00 Save $15.99 Subject to change back to full price at any time. Sixteen-year-old Dante is obsessed with learning to wield the nether, the powerful magic of the death god Arawn. But a century ago, Arawn’s followers were scoured from the kingdom of Mallon. Their temples smashed. Their secrets lost. When Dante tracks down a copy of their holiest book, he throws himself into its study–and finds himself under siege in the city streets. Arawn’s believers aren’t dead. They’re in hiding, and they want back their book. With the help of the nether and a loudmouthed bodyguard named Blays, Dante escapes into the wilds. But Arawn’s army is ready to march from the shadows. As they move against Mallon, they hunt Dante relentlessly, in search of the book. And with his powers growing by the day, Dante finds himself used as a tool in the war against them. He and Blays are dispatched on a thousand-mile journey to assassinate the Arawnites’ leader. If they fail, their homeland will fall.   Want the bargain and free Kindle books sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here. Check out the lineup of Kindles here!

More ENT Deals for 11-3-14 Posted: 03 Nov 2014 05:46 AM PST Here are 3 bargain books and 1 free book to add to your Ereader collection. You can read Kindle books wherever you are and on any device with the Free Kindle App – you don’t even have to own a Kindle to use the app! BARGAIN BOOKS Match by William Massa Rating: 4.8 Stars Genre: Horror Price: $0.99 Save $2.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". “A chilling read and another great book from William Massa.” -Nathan AN OBSESSION FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE… Online dating. A great way to connect in a wired, increasingly busy world, but do you really know who hides behind the smiling pictures? The flirtatious text messages? What if the person on the other end of the dating profile isn't quite what they appear to be… WHAT IF THEY AREN’T EVEN ALIVE? Mark found her photo on a popular dating app. Her name was Akasha, and she was beautiful. Seductive. Irresistible. She wrote that she was looking for friendship. Love. A real connection. But Akasha is concealing a horrible secret. Now Mark must solve a terrifying mystery if he is to save those he loves the most and survive a dangerous obsession. ****************************************** Bird of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska Rating: 4.4 Stars Genre: Historical Fiction Price: $0.99 Save $4.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". “…would appeal to readers who don't need to be led by the hand and who enjoy challenging relationships. Wholeheartedly recommended.” -Gilly Fraser, the Indie eBook Review Award-Winning Author In present day Scotland, India travels back to the small island where she was born in an attempt to unravel the tragic love story that has coloured her whole life. She finds more than she bargained for. ‘He took a long time to come to the door. She had to hammer on the oak with her fists. And then he wrenched it open, staring down at her and blinking in the light. He had never run to fat but she had always thought of him as very fit and muscular. Now his clothes hung off him and his thinness made him seem even taller. His hair was grey and his face was stony. She had a nightmare about him afterwards. In her dream, he was slowly turning into one of the ancient monoliths that walked the fields below the farm.’ Back in 1960s Scotland, young Finn O'Malley travels from Ireland to help with the potato harvest on an island farm. He and Kirsty, the farmer's red-headed grand-daughter, become close friends. But Finn is damaged by a childhood so traumatic that he can only recover his memories slowly. What happened at the brutal Industrial School to which he was committed while still a little boy? For the sake of his sanity, Finn must find out why he was taken into care and what became of the mother he loved and lost. Time passes, Kirsty moves away and the threads that have bound these two friends so closely together begin to unravel. Only her ambitions as an artist can give Kirsty the fulfilment she seeks, but her work is tied up with her love for her home and for Finn who comes and goes like the corncrake each summer. ****************************************** The Stone Maiden by Susan King Rating: 4.2 Stars Genre: Historical Romance Price: $0.99 Save $3.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". The Stone Maiden – Nook “King strongly draws readers into the plot and her characters’ lives.” -Publishers Weekly Award-Winning Author Desperate to save her diminished clan, Alainna MacLaren, heiress to a vast Highland property, seeks a warrior to protect her people—but he must agree to marry her and take her clan’s surname. When the king sends a foreign knight to wed Alainna and gain control of her lands, Sebastien le Bret vows to lend his sword but not his heart—nor will he sacrifice his name and honor. Yet he is powerfully attracted to Alainna—a stone carver of mystical talent—whose pride and passion more than match his own. But a local legend predicts disaster as time grows short—unless the warrior and the maiden can conquer stubborn pride and give in to the power of love. ============================================================ FREE BOOKS Please make sure the price says "Kindle Price $0.00″ before clicking “Buy”. If it says "Prime Members $0.00″ “read for free”, it is NO LONGER FREE. All books are free at the time they are posted but are subject to change back to full price at any time. If you are outside of the United States, these books may not be free. Genesis Plague by Sam Best Rating: 4.4 Stars Genre: Thriller and Suspense Price: $0.00 Save $0.99 Subject to change back to full price at any time. A new life form is found in a cavern below one of the world’s largest volcanoes. The organism shows remarkable resistance to viral infection, and the discovery brings with it the hope of new vaccines for epidemics that have plagued humanity for thousands of years. The possibilities seem endless, until researchers uncover a very specific reason the new organism is so resistant to infection. Before further analysis can be made, the volcano begins to wake. It threatens to spew forth an ancient virus which could lead to the deadliest outbreak in the history of the world.   Want the bargain and free Kindle books sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here. Check out the lineup of Kindles here!

More Ereader Deals for 11-3-14 Posted: 03 Nov 2014 05:29 AM PST Take a break and add a few more books to your library from this selection of 4 bargain books and 2 free books. You can read Kindle books wherever you are and on any device with the Free Kindle App – you don’t even have to own a Kindle to use the app! BARGAIN BOOKS Christmas Kisses by Verna Clay Rating: 4.7 Stars Genre: Contemporary Romance Price: $0.99 Save $2.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Christmas Kisses – Nook Christmas Kisses – Apple iBooks Christmas Kisses – Google Play Christmas Kisses – Kobo “Her ability to capture on the page the deeply emotional subjects that drive the everyman is done in a series of warm and tender moments that mean her craft for writing just gets better and better with every story told.” -Angie Just Read Award-Winning Author Although born into wealth and privilege, Cecelia Brightman she has never found the forever-after kind of happiness she seeks. She has devoted her life to helping others through charity work, but now, at the age of forty-two, she can no longer continue along the same path. Much to the chagrin of her parents, she leaves the trappings of wealth to follow her heart to the small town of Paxtonville in Colorado to be near her brother and his large family. As for the hero of Christmas Kisses, he is new to the series and carrying baggage from a previous sorrow that almost destroyed him. However, I have a feeling Cecelia may be the perfect answer for Connor MacKenzie. ****************************************** Princes Gate by Mark Ellis Rating: 4.5 Stars Genre: Mystery Price: $0.99 Save $5.50 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Princes Gate – Apple iBooks Princes Gate – Google Play “Frank Merlin is a lovely creation and totally convincing…I lost myself in this thriller. This was superb entertainment!” -Eurocrime When a brilliant emigré scientist is killed by a hit and run driver and a young woman’s body is washed up in the Thames, Merlin and his team must investigate. The woman is an employee of the American Embassy, whose Ambassador at this time is Joseph Kennedy. DCI Merlin’s investigation of diplomats at the Embassy ruffles feathers at the Foreign Office – the American Ambassador is a well-known supporter of appeasement and many powerful and influential Britons favour the pursuit of a negotiated peace settlement with Hitler. The death of another Embassy employee leads Merlin into some of the seedier quarters of wartime London where a corrupt night-club owner, various high-flying diplomats and the Ambassador himself appear to be linked to the events surrounding the deaths. Merlin has to pursue his detective work under the interfering supervision of an Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner who is fearful about the impact of Merlin’s investigations on Anglo-American relations at a time when America represents to many Britain’s only hope of salvation. ****************************************** Reborn by Cherie Reich Rating: 4.7 Stars Genre: Fantasy Price: $0.99 Save $2.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Reborn – Nook Reborn – Apple iBooks Reborn – Google Play Reborn – Kobo “Set in a magical land, this tale of adventure sings with Reich's love of Greek mythology.” -Aubrie D. To save a kingdom, a prophetess must challenge Fate. On the day of Yssa’s death and rebirth, the god Apenth chose her as the Phoenix Prophetess. Sea serpents and gods endanger the young prophetess’s journey and sour the omens. Yssa is cursed instead of blessed, and her duties at the Temple of Apenth prove it. She spends her days reading dusty scrolls, which does nothing to help her forget Tym, the boy back home. But the annoying yet gorgeous ferryman’s son Liam proves to be a distraction she can’t predict, even though he rarely leaves her alone for two sand grains. Her boring temple life screeches to a halt when visions of her parents’ murders consume her. Yssa races across an ocean to stop the future. If she can’t change Fate, she’ll refuse to be the Phoenix Prophetess any longer. Fate, however, has other plans for her and the kingdom. Yssa must either accept her destiny or fight to change Fate. ****************************************** Star Wanderers by Joe Vasicek Rating: 4.3 Stars Genre: Science Fiction Price: $0.99 Save $4.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". Star Wanderers – Nook Star Wanderers – Apple iBooks “I enjoyed the science behind the book and the storyline itself was engaging…” -CraZZySyfen PART I- OUTWORLDER When Jeremiah arrived at Megiddo Station, all he wanted was to make some trades and resupply his starship. He never thought he’d come away with a wife. Before he knows it, he’s back on his ship, alone with his accidental bride. Since neither of them speak the same language, he has no way to tell her that there’s been a terrible mistake. And because of the deadly famine ravaging her home, there’s no going back. She’s entirely at his mercy, and that terrifies him more than anything. Jeremiah isn’t ready to take responsibility for anyone. He’s a star wanderer, roaming the Outworld frontier in search of his fortune. Someday he’ll settle down, but for now, he just wants to drop the girl off at the next port and move on. As he soon finds out, though, she has other plans. PART II- FIDELITY Oriana Station: a bustling frontier settlement between the Outworlds and the Coreward Stars. A popular port-of-call for free traders and independent starfarers alike—and the latest target in the aggressively expansionist plans of the Gaian Empire. Life was simple for Jeremiah and Noemi before they arrived. Though neither of them speak the same language, they’ve reached an understanding that goes beyond words. But when the colonial authorities make them into second-class citizens of a fractured empire, even that might not be enough. Their newfound friends in the immigrant community can only do so much. With Noemi and her people depending on him, Jeremiah must find a way back to the Outworlds—before they lose everything that they came for. PART III- SACRIFICE When Jeremiah found himself alone on his starship with an accidental bride, he had no idea how much his life would soon change. Now, with Noemi’s quiet confidence supporting him as she carries their first child, it’s hard to imagine life without her. But life in the Outworlds isn’t so simple. Good men are hard to come by, and Noemi’s friends expect her to share. As part of a colony mission bound for an unsettled star, Jeremiah can’t say no without causing a rift in the community. But if he says yes, his new-found happiness may soon come to an end. One way or another, he will have to make a sacrifice—one that could tear their starbound family apart. PART IV- HOMEWORLD For years, Jeremiah has wandered the stars in search of a home. With his wife Noemi about to have a baby, he thinks he’s finally found a place to settle down. The Zarmina system lies on the edge of the Outworld frontier, but together with their friends, they hope to establish a thriving new colony. The only problem is that the system is already inhabited—by pirates. The colonists no sooner arrive than they fall prisoner to Captain Helena and her band of rogues from the New Pleiades. She gives them an ultimatum, live like slaves on the planet’s surface, or breathe vacuum. With all their dreams about to be shattered, they have to find a way to fight back. But to do so may endanger everything—including the lives of the ones they love most. ============================================================ FREE BOOKS Please make sure the price says "Kindle Price $0.00″ before clicking “Buy”. If it says "Prime Members $0.00″ “read for free”, it is NO LONGER FREE. All books are free at the time they are posted but are subject to change back to full price at any time. If you are outside of the United States, these books may not be free. Messages by John Michael Hileman Rating: 4.2 Stars Genre: Christian Fiction Price: $0.00 Save $14.95 Subject to change back to full price at any time. Messages – Nook Messages – Apple iBooks Messages – Kobo Amazon Bestselling Author David Chance can see messages in the sea of words around him, messages that warn him of future events. Words are everywhere– on labels, magazines, sign posts, t-shirts– everywhere. And as much as David Chance would like to hide from them, he can’t. Words keep leaping off objects around him, forming messages in his mind. But how is this possible? Has his brain suddenly taken an evolutionary leap forward, or are the mysterious messages proof of divine intervention? Driven to answer a question he’d long ago abandoned, and stalked by the killer he’s trying to stop, David risks everything to follow the messages to a dirty bomb set to go off in the heart of Boston. But can he trust the author of the messages to protect him from a terrorist who seems to know his every move. ****************************************** Runes by Ednah Walters Rating: 4.5 Stars Genre: Young Adult Price: $0.00 Save $9.95 Subject to change back to full price at any time. Amazon Bestselling Author Seventeen-year-old Raine Cooper has enough on her plate dealing with her father's disappearance, her mother's erratic behavior and the possibility of her boyfriend relocating. The last thing she needs is Torin St. James—a mysterious new neighbor with a wicked smile and uncanny way of reading her. Raine is drawn to Torin's dark sexiness against her better judgment, until he saves her life with weird marks and she realizes he is different. But by healing her, Torin changes something inside Raine. Now she can't stop thinking about him. Half the time, she's not sure whether to fall into his arms or run. Scared, she sets out to find out what Torin is. But the closer she gets to the truth the more she uncovers something sinister about him. What Torin is goes back to an ancient mythology and Raine is somehow part of it. Not only is she and her friends in danger, she must choose a side, but the wrong choice will cost Raine her life.   Want the bargain and free Kindle books sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here. Check out the lineup of Kindles here!

Book Of The Day – Hard Target Posted: 03 Nov 2014 05:11 AM PST Today's Book of the Day is a Romantic Suspense novel by USA Today bestselling author Barbara Phinney and it's 75% off for a limited time. Hard Target has a 4.1 star rating and is on sale for only 99 cents – save $3! “I like a good story and this one provides many twists and turns.” Taylor – Amazon Reviewer Hard Target by Barbara Phinney Rating: 4.1 Stars Genre: Romantic Suspense Price: $0.99 save $3   Hard Target – Google Play Hard Target – Kobo USA Today Bestselling Author Military policewoman, Sgt. Dawna Atkinson, is trained to keep her South American embassy safe, but when a bomb is detonated out front one morning, her home unit sends her old instructor, Tay Hastings, to assist with the investigation. Tay is the one person who can ruin all she’s worked so hard for. He’s also her one weakness, thanks to a night of shared indiscretion that still haunts her dreams. Tay wants to tell her how he fought to take the blame for that night, and how she makes him feel, but circumstances prevent that. As the investigation heats up, they find that it’s one thing to guard the embassy, but another, much harder thing to guard their own hearts. Here’s what the reviewers have to say: Barbara Phinney really knows how to tell a story! She combines romance and suspense/mystery very deftly, and the pacing just carries you forward. This one kept me guessing all the way. Very atmospheric, too, and the details ground you wonderfully. It’s almost like being there. ******* I will start out by saying that the author obviously knows her stuff, having done the hard yards with research. It is rare when I don’t figure out “who’s who at the zoo” but the perpetrator’s identity fooled me this time. I shall be reading more of this author’s works. ******* Phinney has penned another gripping romantic suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat. Delightful, intense story. Well done! ******* I like books that keep you turning the pages, and Barbara Phinney gets five stars for the wonderful suspenseful pace she set in Hard Target. ******* Very fast paced and the story is so exciting. I am amazed at Ms Phinney’s ability to keep up that constant memento. Throughout this story the action is non stop. Get Hard Target here: Hard Target About The Author USA Today bestselling author Barbara Phinney retired from the military to raise her two children and soon turned her creativity toward writing. That’s when she asked herself, what was the hardest genre to write? Romance. Nearly twenty years later, she’s published in that genre, going on to final in several contests and take the plunge into the self-publishing pool, with Deadly Trust, set in the shadow of the bridge to Prince Edward Island, on the warm beaches that inspire her. Hard Target is a thriller set in Bolivia. Her Warrior series, which starts with Bound to the Warrior, then to Protected by the Warrior, finishing off with Sheltered by the Warrior, out in Feb 2015. An exciting series! Barbara also writes mysteries and sci-fi under the pen name of Georgina Lee. Her latest is Cape of Secrets, and look out for Death on the Ocean Floor, then Turn of the Tide. Barbara lives in Eastern Canada with her husband, since her children have left the nest. She invites you to get up to the minute news from https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBarbaraMPhinney# Thank you for considering today’s Book Of The Day – Barbara Phinney and ENT appreciate it.

Bargain and Free Books for 11-3-14 Posted: 03 Nov 2014 05:07 AM PST Good morning, friends! Enjoy some time with your Ereader by downloading this selection of 4 bargain books and 2 free books. You can read Kindle books wherever you are and on any device with the Free Kindle App – you don’t even have to own a Kindle to use the app! BARGAIN BOOKS Denim Blues Mysteries, Book 1: Retired and on the Rocks by Karen Wiesner Rating: 3.5 Stars Genre: Christian Fiction Price: $1.99 Save $4.00 Make sure price is still $1.99 before clicking "Buy". Denim Blues Mysteries, Book 1: Retired and on the Rocks – Nook “This is a real page-turner. It held my attention to the very last word. Mystery fans will not want to miss this.” -Readers Favorite Award-Winning Author A missing engagement ring leads to murder… It’s been a month since Denim McHart hung up his private investigating career after he ended up with a bullet in his leg. The injury has forced Den to re-evaluate future goals in his career, his love-life and his spiritual life. To keep himself busy in early retirement, he’s been attempting to restore an antique table and he’s officially bored. He can’t seem to keep his mind off his investigative partner, the lovely and complicated Sylvia Price whom he’s had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with in the past. When Sylvia calls him out of the blue, he doesn’t waste time getting down to their office. In this past month, Sylvia has been dealing with her own feelings for Den, her overwhelming guilt for the pivotal event that happened years ago and caused her mother to be mentally unstable, coinciding with her inability to forgive herself the way she knows the Lord has forgiven her. Before the sparks can fly between Den and Sylvia in the direction he has his heart set, she says they’ve got company. Jilted bride Naomi Deva tells him that her groom–Mayor Thomas Julian–dumped her at the altar. Reluctantly, she admits he’d caught her in a compromising position with the best man only minutes before the ceremony. Naomi also reveals the reason why she’s sought them: The local police department hasn’t been able to turn up the 6.1 carat diamond engagement ring Thomas gave her…and the groom wants it back. Immediately. ****************************************** Reign of Fear by Alaric Longward Rating: 4.8 Stars Genre: Historical Fiction Price: $0.99 Save $4.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". “Longward's story of a mother and daughter trying to survive during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars is engaging, captivating, and informative.” -Becca Q. Jeanette is a girl with many powerful enemies. Having fought off her own traitorous family, young Jeanette and her mother Henriette seek refuge with the desperate revolutionaries of 1789 Paris. Yet no refuge is safe when dangerous men attempt to foment great, king-killing changes. Discovering a dreadful secret of the revolutionary leaders and hunted by her mad, driven cousin Gilbert, the two women become desperate exiles. They face a near hopeless fight to survive the Temple, an infamous prison, and the festering age of Terror, while being searched for by their powerful enemies. They find hope in the army where a handsome, if impossible captain gives them shelter from Gilbert and even the Jacobins. Here, Jeanette learns of love and finds a firm family in the ranks of the revolutionary army as a cantiniére. But even with the help of her new, rugged family and the brave captain, can she take the fight to Gilbert and his masters, and win peace for herself and her family? ****************************************** White Rabbit by K.A. Laity Rating: 4.3 Stars Genre: Mystery Price: $1.99 Save $3.48 Make sure price is still $1.99 before clicking "Buy". “KA Laity offers a surreal, hallucinogenic journey that is both humorous and unsettling.” -Richard G. Sometimes the shadows that haunt us are what lead us back to the light. Disgraced former police detective James Draygo has sunk as low as his habit allows, working as a fake psychic despite his very real talents. When a media mogul's trashy trophy wife gets gunned down at his tapping table he has to decide whether he can straighten up long enough to save his own skin. He may not have a choice with Essex's loudest ghost bawling in his ear about cults, conspiracies and cut-rate drugs. Oblivion sounds better all the time… ****************************************** She Belongs to Me by Carmen DeSousa Rating: 4.0 Stars Genre: Romantic Suspense Price: $0.99 Save $4.00 Make sure price is still $0.99 before clicking "Buy". “…a definitely good suspenseful read. Ms. DeSousa is a talented author and I had no problem in connecting with the characters.” -The Romance Reviews Charlotte police officer Jordan Monroe is used to being in control. Ever since his father died, he has provided for his mother and sisters and even hired his two brothers-in-law to help run his successful construction company. On a chance business trip, however, he meets the one person who throws his life into a whirlwind–Jaynee. Jaynee has lived a tragic life and has sworn off all men. That is until a rugged southern gentleman lands in her seating area, refusing to take no for an answer. From the moment they meet, Jordan sweeps her off her feet, assuring her that happiness exists. But can she really escape her past? Five years later, Jordan finds Jaynee on their back porch with a gunshot wound to the head. While Jaynee lies in a coma, Jordan has to go back to their beginning and figure out what went wrong. Did he push his wife to the edge, or has her past come back to haunt them? ============================================================ FREE BOOKS Please make sure the price says "Kindle Price $0.00″ before clicking “Buy”. If it says "Prime Members $0.00″ “read for free”, it is NO LONGER FREE. All books are free at the time they are posted but are subject to change back to full price at any time. If you are outside of the United States, these books may not be free. Is This All There Is by Patricia Mann Rating: 4.2 Stars Genre: Womens Fiction Price: $0.00 Save $13.95 Subject to change back to full price at any time. Beth Thomas' seemingly perfect life is about to take a detour. At thirty-five, she's married to her college sweetheart, has two adorable kids, and finds fulfillment teaching part time at the local university. But when a friend persuades her to go dancing on a rare night out, a chance meeting with a handsome former student changes the course of her life. Loud music, too much to drink, and the thrill of feeling young again lead to an unforgettable kiss that was never supposed to happen. Beth feels wanted again, listened to, cared for, but she knows it's wrong. She tries to put the memory behind her, but he pursues her, drawing Beth back to temptation. As she travels deeper into Dave's world, Beth struggles to choose between what her mind says is right and what she truly craves. ****************************************** An Igniting Attraction by Stef Ann Holm Rating: 4.2 Stars Genre: Contemporary Romance Price: $0.00 Save $4.99 Subject to change back to full price at any time. An Igniting Attraction – Nook USA Today Bestselling Author Fireman Tony Cruz faces the charred ruins of his life. Burned by his adulteress wife, Tony just lost his precious step-daughter in the resulting divorce. Across the street, Natalie Goodwin is enjoying her empty nest. The ink dry on her divorce papers and her daughter now in college, Natalie is realizing her dream: opening her very own flower shop. Life is finally going right, until Tony Cruz walks in the door. Now sparks of desire are flying everywhere, each one threatening to ignite Natalie’s own fire. But falling for a hunky fireman nine years her junior is not part of the plan.   Want the bargain and free Kindle books sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here. Check out the lineup of Kindles here!

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The Digital Reader

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• The Morning Coffee – 3 November 2014
• Is Facebook a Life Raft for Web Publishers or the New Gatekeeper?
• Onyx T68 6.8″ Android eReader Update Borks Google Play

The Morning Coffee – 3 November 2014 Posted: 02 Nov 2014 07:21 PM PST Must read stories this morning include, well, everything. But I especially liked the post on authors who hate their readers, the need for an ebook DMCA exception, John Scalzi’s take on NaNoWriMo, and what happened when Dear Author’s tech blogger tried to review tablets. Disney Patents a Piracy Free Search Engine (TorrentFreak) Five Black Sci-Fi Writers You Should Know (Bitch Media) Getting traction for Traction book: 12,328 copies by the numbers (Gabriel Weinberg) I was going to review some tablets . . . (Dear Author) Mislectorist (madgeniusclub) A Quick Note on NaNoWriMo (Whatever) Survey: Library Ebook Growth Slowing but Still Substantial (The Digital Shift) Welcome to the Hotel Author Solutions (Helen Sedwick) What I Want from Library Ebooks (Peer to Peer Review) Why we need an e-book DRM DMCA exemption (TeleRead) The post The Morning Coffee – 3 November 2014 appeared first on The Digital Reader.

Is Facebook a Life Raft for Web Publishers or the New Gatekeeper? Posted: 02 Nov 2014 06:45 PM PST Facebook has been getting a lot of attention this past week. The NYTimes posted a couple articles on Sunday, leading to a flurry of articles from Digiday, Business Insider, Forbes, and others. I had been following the coverage as the week wore on, but then lost all of the tabs I had open when my copy of Chrome spontaneously delaminated on Thursday. So this afternoon I went looking for the better articles and put together a roundup post. The crux of the meta-story, as the NY Times put it in the article zero, is that Facebook is trying to get web publishers to work more closely with Facebook, especially with the mobile FB app: The company has been on something of a listening tour with publishers, discussing better ways to collaborate. The social network has been eager to help publishers do a better job of servicing readers in the News Feed, including improving their approach to mobile in a variety of ways. One possibility it mentioned was for publishers to simply send pages to Facebook that would live inside the social network's mobile app and be hosted by its servers; that way, they would load quickly with ads that Facebook sells. The revenue would be shared. Yep, Facebook wants publishers to hand their content over to Facebook. I think that’s a crazy idea, but I can see why some publishers are considering it; Facebook earned $3.2 billion last quarter based on a userbase of 1.3 billion people (not all of which are actually visiting the website, though). That’s a lot of audience members all piled up in one place, and it explains why Facebook was the source for 22% of the website traffic tracked by Shareaholic in September (the rest of the social web accounted for around 7%, and the other 71% ish came from organic search and direct traffic). All those eyeballs in one place has also inspired a number of publishers to create content aimed at the social audience, Digiday reports: It's not just new media outlets. CNN Politics has created a series of original videos for Facebook and Twitter around the upcoming elections. The clips were made with the young social media user in mind: They're short (15 and 30 seconds), animated, visually appealing and relatable (this one explained campaign spending in terms of Pumpkin Spice Lattes). I don’t know what’s crazier, that so much is being invested in popcorn content (it’s fluffy and goes stale quickly) or that it’s being given to Facebook as a freebie. Not all of the content is that fluffy, but any at all is too much IMO. But as Digiday explained, Facebook seems to be paying back the investment: And now, they're enjoying strong promotion for their videos in Facebook's News Feed, which gives them an incentive to distribute more video this way. "Any time someone opens up a native experience, we're only serving them via their player, we're getting more views, more plays," Mills said of Facebook. The rise of Facebook as both a source of and destination for news content would appear to be caught in a feedback loop with the idea that social is the future (or at least, the near-future) and that direct traffic (i.e. readers who visit a website everyday) is irrelevant. That might be true for some sites, but when it does not apply to all. This blog, for example, gets about a fifth of its traffic from readers who have made visiting The Digital Reader part of their routine. That’s a larger traffic source for me than social, and if I factor in the readers who visit after Googling for “The Digital Reader” the number rises even further. Then again, I am a niche blogger who doesn’t have the resources to devote time to self-promotion on the social web (even though I fully grasp why I should be marketing myself on TW, FB, etc). Perhaps those who do have the resources to invest also gain from that investment, but I would think that before they crawl into bed with Facebook they should recall what happened the last time Facebook convinced them to cozy up. According to Forbes, it didn’t end well: It's not the first time Facebook has entered into content partnerships with publishers. In 2012, several, including the Guardian and the Washington Post, worked with the company to produce Social Reader apps that, similarly, allowed content to be read and shared on Facebook. And it didn't work well for the publishers. As you might expect, most of the content was consumed on Facebook itself, with little click-through to the publishers' own sites. As a result, some publishers even saw traffic to these sites fall dramatically – in some cases by almost half. I think publishers would do well to remember that fiasco. They might also want to heed the aphorism about not putting all of one’s eggs in a single basket. Facebook’s News Feed algorithms would best be described as mercurial, and what is hot one week but be cold the next. From the NYTimes: Roughly once a week, [Greg Marra] and his team of about 16 adjust the complex computer code that decides what to show a user when he or she first logs on to Facebook. The code is based on "thousands and thousands" of metrics, Mr. Marra said, including what device a user is on, how many comments or likes a story has received and how long readers spend on an article. Marra went on to say that “We try to explicitly view ourselves as not editors” but I don’t see how that could be the case.  If the algorithms pick one piece of content over another then the decisions to change the algorithms are arguably editorial decisions. I wouldn’t phrase it in terms quite so strong as Jay Rosen did on his blog PressThink, but I do agree with his sentiment: It's not us exercising judgment, it's you. We're not the editors, you are. If this is what Facebook is saying — and I think it's a fair summary of Marra's comments to the New York Times — the statement is a lie. I say a lie, not just an untruth, because anyone who works day-to-day on the code for News Feed knows how much judgment goes into it. It simply isn't true that an algorithmic filter can be designed to remove the designers from the equation. It's an assertion that melts on contact. No one smart enough to work at Facebook could believe it. And I'm not sure why it's sitting there unchallenged in a New York Times story. For that doesn't even rise to the level of "he said, she said." It's just: he said, poof! In short, getting into bed with Facebook means that publishers won’t just lose direct page views; they’ll also have to sacrifice editorial control to some degree. As Chris Duncan, the chief marketing officer of News UK , told Business Insider: "The insidious part [of the Facebook algorithm] is that you are creating performance-based editorial. If you get the Facebook algorithm to dictate the quality of content based on what it can see on the Facebook network — time on site, likes, shares — it promotes and rewards a certain type of article so you're not incentivized to write news that's important but that is not necessarily likely to go viral," Duncan adds. The value and costs of Facebook is an open ended question which won’t be answered any time soon, but as I sit here writing this post I was struck by the question which I don’t see anyone else asking. Is all this talk about closer partnerships with social networks really the future, or is this just another fad like iPad apps were in 2010? I don’t know, but that’s definitely a point I will be thinking about as time goes by. images by GioSaccone,  mkhmarketing,  Franco Bouly The post Is Facebook a Life Raft for Web Publishers or the New Gatekeeper? appeared first on The Digital Reader.

Onyx T68 6.8″ Android eReader Update Borks Google Play Posted: 02 Nov 2014 01:29 PM PST Onyx has rolled out a new update for their larger ereader, the T68 Lynx, the week before last. There’s been no formal announcement of the update, but a fellow Android ereader devotee tipped me to the news. The T68 Lynx sports a 6.8″ Pearl E-ink screen and runs Android 4.0 on a 1GHz CPU. It was originally released in June and has been updated a couple times since then. The new update can be installed from the T68; it can be found in the about menu under the settings menu. I’ve installed the update and after testing it I would strongly urge you not to touch it. The update adds a number of features (as well as a fix for the touchscreen) but not all of the changes are improvements. Also, I have encountered a serious problem. Google Play is no longer accessible. Every time I try to open it, it either closes right away or freezes and then closes. According to the changelog, the update is supposed to add a way to manage your Google account (there was no option for this before), and I suspect that something was inadvertently broken instead. This issue is particularly troubling because I just put my T68 Lynx through a factory reset. I don’t have any apps at all, and now I can’t install them. I am currently waiting on ArtaTech, one of Onyx’s partners, to tell me how to fix this. *** When it comes to the rest of the update, it’s a mixed bag of useful improvements and changes that hurt more than they help. The official changelog is at the end of the post, and while I can’t say that I tested all of it both my source and I noted several changes. My source reports that his touchscreen now performs better; I never experienced the issues reported by some so I can’t comment. The update adds several apps, including a sketchpad app called Onyx Scribbler and Drive and News apps from Mediapolist (sp?). The update is also supposed to have added improved TTS, but since a recent factory update has deleted the Ivona folder I have no way to test it. There’s also supposed to be a better option for Google accounts, but I (still) can’t find anything which looks remotely like what I would expect on Android. I can say that I’ve noticed that the icons in the menu bar have been rearranged; the option for the frontlight has been moved to the last position, and as a result I now have to press the more button before I can select it and adjust the frontlight. That was dumb; I need the frontlight more than I need the settings menu. (Also, the minimum setting is still too bright.) But never mind the annoyances; after playing around with the T68 I have discovered that Onyx has also updated OReader, the stock reading app. I can’t tell you whether the changes were made in this update or an earlier update which I missed, but I have noticed that the design of the app has changed – and not for the better. The stock reading app used to default to a full screen mode with nothing at the top and only a minimalist progress bar at the bottom, but now screen real estate is wasted on a status bar at the top and bottom of the screen. And I can’t find a way to make them go away, dammit. (To be clear, I used to have the option.) But on the plus side, OReader is now considerably faster than it was when I reviewed the T68 Lynx in June. it now turns the page nearly as fast as the Paperwhite or the Aura HD. In June it was much slower. I’m also seeing different options for fonts and other settings. For example, there is a slider bar for bold which I’m pretty sure wasn’t there before. There’s a similar slider bar for adjusting the contrast, but I can’t see that it is having any effect. *** All in all, I am really disappointed in this update. It adds almost nothing which benefits me, while at the same time it ruined the reading app. That last isn’t such a big deal, given that I can install 3rd-party reading apps, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. Changelog: Improved touchscreen Improved TTS Improved google account management Improved search field suggestions Mediapolist drive and News Apps adds Thanks, jafmaw! The post Onyx T68 6.8″ Android eReader Update Borks Google Play appeared first on The Digital Reader.

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