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Penguin's Book Country is a Brand New Online Community For Genre Fiction Writers And Readers [image]This week Penguin Group (USA) announced the soft launch of Book Country, an online community where readers and writers can come together to read original fiction, post work or comments, and make a name for themselves. The free, multi-faceted site, led by Book Country President Molly Barton, Penguin's Director of Business Development, defines "genre fiction" as all the subgenres of romance, mystery ...
Penguin's Book Country is a Brand New Online Community For Genre Fiction Writers And Readers [image]This week Penguin Group (USA) announced the soft launch of Book Country, an online community where readers and writers can come together to read original fiction, post work or comments, and make a name for themselves. The free, multi-faceted site, led by Book Country President Molly Barton, Penguin's Director of Business Development, defines "genre fiction" as all the subgenres of romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction, and fantasy. The site is a creative and supportive space where writers and readers can give and receive constructive criticism, discover new books, discuss and share tips and experiences, and learn about the publishing industry. Book Country also offers agents, publishers and editors a place to discover new voices. Later this year, Book Country will offer self-publishing services for eBooks and print books. Though owned by Penguin Group (USA), Book Country includes books from publishers across the industry on the Genre Map, and staff members from all publishers are welcome to participate. "We created Book Country because while writing and publishing sites have proliferated in recent years, none were designed by publishing experts to create a more valuable pathway forward for new writers," explained Book Country President Molly Barton. The new site has already gained widespread national attention. An article on the front page of The New York Times Arts section ran on launch day. Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch also covered Tuesday's soft launch of the site, as Book Country's traction in the genre fiction community is growing rapidly. Follow Book Country on Facebook and Twitter. Beloved Betty White's If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't) is the Talk of the Nation [image]The book everyone has been buzzing about has finally arrived. Beloved seven-time Emmy winner Betty White brings her wit and wisdom to fans throughout the country with G. P. Putnam's Sons May 3 publication of If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't), a collection of all new material that includes her thoughtful observations and humorous stories that are funny, sweet, and to the point—just like Betty. The media blitz begins with a wonderful feature by Frank Bruni in The New York Times Arts Section this Sunday, May 1, followed closely by another major feature with photos in USA Today on Monday, May 2. On publication day, Betty will be making the rounds to the top television shows starting with an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, then on to co-host the The View, and over to CBS' Late Show with David Letterman to deliver the "Top 10" list on Wednesday, May 4. Other major media coverage kicks off with a stellar lineup of print features running in Newsweek, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, USA Weekend, Thomson Reuters, AARP online, and a Books-A-Million BookPage cover story. Additional national television appearances include PBS' Tavis Smiley Show, CNN's Joy Behar, and the "Gayle King Show" on OWN and SIRIUS XM radio. Tune in to hear Betty on NPR's Weekend Edition, The Takeaway, and Leonard Lopate Show, as well as the syndicated Joan Hamburg Show, and Mitch Albom on ABC Radio. She will also reach homes across nationwide via television and radio satellite tours that will hit top markets throughout the country. Look out for reviews and book coverage in Entertainment Weekly, Ladies' Home Journal, TV Guide Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, Time Out New York, Chicago Tribune's RedEye, and New York Magazine's popular "Vulture" blog. Fans will have a chance to meet Betty White during a two-week national book signing tour in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles that includes two on-stage conversations with Frank Bruni at TimesTalks in New York City and with actor Carl Reiner for Writers Bloc at The Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles. Additional book signings will take place at Barnes & Noble in Lake Grove, Long Island, the Fifth Avenue store in New York City, and Skokie, IL, as well as Costco in Marina del Ray and Book Soup in Los Angeles. Janny Scott's A Singular Woman Draws Major National Media Coverage [image]Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother, is the subject of a deeply reported and researched biography, A Singular Woman, by award-winning, New York Times reporter Janny Scott. Little is known about the fiercely independent, spirited woman who raised the current president of the United States. Through her exhaustive research, Scott uncovered the full breadth of Dunham's life. This acclaimed book has captured national attention in advance of its release by Riverhead on May 3. A major national media campaign launched with an excerpt from the book in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. The piece ran as the cover story in the April 24th print edition of the magazine and was featured online on the Times' homepage last week. The online excerpt generated hundreds of comments and sparked a media frenzy, with blogs and websites across the country and all over the world picking it up, including Salon.com and New York Magazine. Salon called the excerpt "a tantalizing slice of what will likely become one of the most talked about books of the spring, and a compelling portrait of a woman whose unorthodox life would make for a compelling read even if her only son hadn't become the 44th president." On publication day, the author will appear on WHYY's Fresh Air, interviewed by Terry Gross; on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, in a live, in-studio interview; and on PRI's The Takeaway (one million listeners and airs on 50 stations nationwide). She will also be interviewed on PBS' The Charlie Rose Show and on WAMC FM's The Roundtable. In the following week, she will appear on C-SPAN's After Words. We've also scheduled interviews for Scott on Sirius XM's Bob Edwards and The Maggie Linton Show. Scott will also take part in a national tour, including appearances in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago. On May 4, Scott is scheduled for an 18-20 city national radio satellite tour, followed by an 18-20 city national television satellite tour on May 5. Look for upcoming review coverage of A Singular Woman in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The New York Times daily edition on May 3rd, USA Today, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. Five Penguin Group (USA) Books Lead USA Today's Preview of "May Books Not to Miss" [image]USA Today's "May Books Preview," featured prominently in the Life section of Thursday's edition of the paper, was led by five books published by Penguin Group (USA). Betty White's If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't), on sale May 3 from Putnam, is the lead title among "books not to miss in May" in a full-page spread on celebrity memoirs and biographies. The Story of How I Became a Man by Chaz Bono, to be published by Dutton on May 10, is also featured on this page. USA Today reporter Carol Memmott focused on ten fiction and nonfiction books not to miss in May, and ranked #1 is A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother by Janny Scott, which goes on sale from Riverhead on May 3. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, being published May 3 by Viking, is #2. The Immortal Story of Cleopatra: Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley, which goes on sale from Dutton on May 12, is #6. Putnam and the Robert B. Parker Estate to Continue Publication of Parker's Top Best-Selling Series with New Authors [image]G. P. Putnam's Sons and the Robert B. Parker estate have come together to strike a deal that will allow Parker's top bestselling series, Spenser (39 novels since 1974) and Jesse Stone (9 novels since 1997), to continue in the hands of two new, highly respected and accomplished writers, Michael Brandman and Ace Atkins. Parker, who authored more than 60 novels between 1974 and 2010, most of them national best-sellers, passed away in January of 2010, after which his last few completed novels were published posthumously by Putnam. The final work, Sixkill, the 39th entry in the beloved Spenser series about the now-legendary Boston private detective who goes only by his surname, goes on sale May 3. Joan Parker, Robert's widow, and his soul-mate since they met as teenagers in Massachusetts in the early 1950s, expressed her enthusiasm for the new arrangement with Putnam and the new authors: "I am delighted that the worlds of Spenser and Jesse Stone will live on in the capable, talented hands of such gifted writers," she stated. Putnam President Ivan Held noted that "It is exciting to think that we can keep these two iconic characters that Bob invented going with the deft touches of our new authors, Michael Brandman and Ace Atkins under the eye of Bob's longtime editor Chris Pepe. They have truly captured the voice that gave—and still gives—so many readers great pleasure." Putnam Executive Editor Chris Pepe recalled, "I started working with Bob Parker as a young editor more than twenty-three years ago. Although I was new to the publishing world, I knew Bob: he had long been one of my father's literary idols, and therefore became one of mine. How lucky for me, then, to work with him for all those years, on forty-seven incredible books. He was an absolute joy, and clearly very patient: he's the one who really taught me to be an editor, and so I owe him a tremendous debt. I'm thrilled that we have found two such talented writers to carry on Bob's work; they respect and understand the characters of Spenser and Jesse, and are ideal stewards to bring both series into the future." Michael Brandman is a long-established Hollywood producer and screenwriter who, with actor Tom Selleck, both co-wrote and produced the CBS television movies featuring Selleck as Parker's creation Jesse Stone, a small-town Massachusetts police chief, in such films as Stone Cold, Night Passage, Sea Change, and Death in Paradise. Ace Atkins, who will be continuing as the new author of the bestselling Spenser series, is already well-established with Putnam, having authored a number of well-received novels based on historical crimes and criminals, including White Shadow, Infamous, and Wicked City. Atkins' next Putnam book, The Ranger, the first entry in a new series about Army Ranger Quinn Colson, goes on sale June 9. See our full catalog of books by Robert B. Parker. Ace Editor in Chief Ginjer Buchanan, Ace Authors Alastair Reynolds and Allen M. Steele, and Viking/Penguin author Lev Grossman Nominated for Hugo Awards [image]The Hugo Awards, which are among the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction, are presented every year to highlight the most interesting, creative, and culturally significant works and achievements in science fiction and fantasy writing. The 2011 Hugo Award nominations were announced on Sunday, April 24rd and Berkley's very own Ginjer Buchanan has been nominated for the "Best Editor, Long Form" Hugo Award. She is pictured here, on the left, with author Charlaine Harris. Buchanan has been an influential member of the Ace editorial team for more than 27 years, rising to the rank of Editor in Chief in 2007. She has edited some of the imprint's best -known writers, including Charlaine Harris, Charles Stross, and Robert Sawyer, as well as up and coming authors like Taylor Anderson. Joining Buchanan among this year's nominees are Ace authors Alastair Reynolds and Allen M. Steele, as well as Viking/Penguin's Lev Grossman. Reynolds is nominated for "Best Novella" for Troika, with fellow Ace author Steele nominated for "Best Novelette" for The Emperor of Mars. Grossman, author of The Magicians, is nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for "Best New Writer." The Hugo Award ceremony will take place at the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno, Nevada this August. Click here to see the full list of nominees. Please join us in congratulating our colleagues! The Penguin Press Acquires Pulitzer Prize Winner Ron Chernow's Biography of Ulysses S. Grant and a New Book on Innovation by California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom Ann Godoff, President and Publisher of The Penguin Press, announced this week the acquisition of new books by Pulitzer Prize winning-author Ron Chernow and California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom will show how citizens can use social media, technology and available government data to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and redesign government in their own image. This solution-driven book suggests that we are at the dawn of a revolutionary change in the way government and the people interact. "Gavin Newsom's employing what America does best—innovation—and using it to call for many local revolutions that will overcome the epidemic gridlock in our government bureaucracy," Godoff said. "Just as Apple's app store succeeded by tapping into the ingenuity of ordinary Americans, so can government harness the collective intelligence of citizens to help solve our greatest challenges," said Newsom. Publication is planned for Winter 2013. Ron Chernow, this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his magisterial biography of George Washington, moves from that towering figure of the Revolutionary War to write a sweeping and comprehensive biography of his counterpart in the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant. A publication date has not yet been determined. Read an excerpt from Washington: A Life. Bestselling Author C.J. Box Offers Readers His First eSpecial, The Master Falconer, Featuring Series Leads Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski [image]This week, bestselling Putnam author C.J. Box released his first Penguin eSpecial, a short story called The Master Falconer. This is the second recent big first for Box, who recently made his first appearance on The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list with Cold Wind (Putnam). In the words of the Dallas Morning News, "With each new book, the New York Times best-selling author is cementing a national reputation as one of today's most authentic chroniclers of the American West." The West is not the way it's portrayed in the movies—most of the time. But when a dangerous foreigner in a private jet brings trouble for master falconer Nate Romanowski and his trusted friend, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, it may just be time to Cowboy Up. Box is the author of 11 Joe Pickett novels and three stand-alone thrillers. He has won the Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe and Barry Awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, and has been an Edgar Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, all for the Pickett novels. His first stand-alone novel, Blue Heaven, won the Edgar Award for best novel of 2009. This eSpecial short story is an exciting new addition to the Joe Pickett series hailed by People Magazine as one that "combines harrowing adrenaline rushes with complex morality, humor, and a landscape described so vibrantly it seems to have a life all its own." Tarcher Author's Ten-City "Hair Tour" Promotes The Internet is a Playground and Raises Funds for National Children's Cancer Society [image]Did you know that a lock of Justin Bieber's hair is currently on tour—with a bodyguard no less? Frenzied fans are lining up across the nation to get their picture taken with Bieber's hair for one dollar, with the proceeds going toward tsunami relief. Though Bieber's hair may not be stopping at bookstores, author David Thorne's hair will. His book, The Internet Is a Playground (Tarcher), is being promoted through a ten-city David Thorne Hair Tour to create buzz for the bitingly funny book, which has already pre-sold more than 2,000 copies. [image]According to Thorne's editor, Michael Solana: "Thorne declared war on Justin Bieber last month with his site HelpMeSellMoreBooksThanJustinBieber.com. A 10-city tour of his hair was kind of inevitable." Solana's enthusiasm is clear in the photo at left. A lock of Thorne's hair will spend three days at each participating store, and for every store on the tour route, Tarcher will donate $200 to the National Children's Cancer Society. The $1 fee customers pay to have their picture taken with the hallowed lock will also be donated to this cause. In addition to this unusual tour, which was mentioned in GalleyCat and will be in Shelf Awareness soon, the book was featured in the May issue of Wired and excerpted for their iPad app. It will be reviewed on BoingBoing, featured on PopMatters.com in a Q&A that will also run in papers via McClatchy, excerpted on nerve.com, and the subject of a Washington Post Live chat. Wired writes: "There is usually a fine line between genius and insanity, but in this case it has become very blurred. Some of the funniest and most clever writing I have read in years." Karen White's On Folly Beach Chosen as Finalist for The Southern Independent Booksellers Association 2011 Book Awards, as She Tours for her New NAL Novel, The Beach Trees [image]NAL author Karen White's bestselling novel On Folly Beach has been chosen as a finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association 2011 Book Awards in the fiction category. Winners will be announced the first week of July. White sets off on a twenty-city tour next week for her new novel, The Beach Trees (New American Library Trade Paperback Original), travelling to such cities as Atlanta, Savannah, Charlotte, Charleston, Memphis, Lexington, Dallas, Houston, and Philadelphia for book signings. While on tour White will appear on WLMT-TV's "Eyewitness News this Morning" in Memphis, and on Clear Channel Radio in Savannah, GA, and she will be featured in local newspapers and magazines such as the Atlanta Intown Paper, Southern Seasons, and Southern Lady. The Beach Trees will also be reviewed in numerous local newspapers such as The Pilot and The Herald-Sun, while the author participates in a twenty-website blog tour for even more review coverage. [image]The Beach Trees is Penguin's May pick for the "What the World is Reading" program (penguin.com/whattheworldisreading). Carefully selected to introduce readers to new voices in fiction, "What the World is Reading" will host an online chat with White in May. The book will be featured on a special Facebook page (facebook.com/whattheworldisreading), and it will also be included in a promotional sampler and brochure that goes out to all key accounts. In addition, The Beach Trees will be a July BlogHer book club selection and it will receive reviews and attention on BlogHer.com, in newsletters, and on the BlogHer social networks. Read an excerpt from The Beach Trees. Military Science Fiction Reaches New Heights—Aboard NASA'S Endeavour [image]More specifically, the newest book from bestselling author Jack Campbell will reach a height of approximately 140 miles straight up. Published this week, The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught (Ace Books) is headed to outer space this Friday aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on NASA's STS-134 mission, which launched today. US Air Force Colonel Michael Fincke will bring a copy of The Lost Fleet with him when he embarks on a fourteen-day mission. Col. Fincke, who will be serving as Mission Specialist aboard Endeavour, has already read the six previous books in Campbell's series. In an email to Campbell and Ace Books, Fincke said that he is eager to "read the next installment of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet while on the space shuttle." Because of strict weight limits on the shuttle, Fincke requested that the latest installment in Campbell's The Lost Fleet series be sent to him in a digital format. Ace Books emailed a copy to Col. Fincke on the book's pub date, April 26th. The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught is the newest book in Campbell's bestselling military science fiction series—and the first to be published in hardcover. Campbell, who also writes as John Hemry, has a few book signings set up in May, including stops at a few military bases near San Diego and Washington, DC. For more information, visit his website at www.johnghemry.com. Read an excerpt from The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught. Ranger's Apprentice: Book Ten: The Emperor Of Nihon-Ja [image]John Flanagan's international bestselling Ranger's Apprentice series comes to a close this week with the publication of the final book in the series, Ranger's Apprentice: Book Ten: The Emperor Of Nihon-Ja. The popular series, which currently has more than three million copies in print, has attracted fans across the globe with its edge-of-your-seat adventures of Will, an orphan who becomes an apprentice Ranger, and his master, Halt, as they strive to keep their beloved kingdom of Araluen safe from threats and traitors. The series is so popular that it has not only been optioned for film but also adapted as a popular literary summer camp for kids. In its thrilling conclusion which The Wall Street Journal calls "[an] exciting mix of adventure, peril, wit and romance," a kingdom teeters on the edge of chaos, victory lies in the hands of an inexperienced group of fighters, and it's anybody's guess who will make the journey home to Araluen. John Flanagan is currently on a nine-city tour visiting schools and stores in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, Houston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York City. Recent and upcoming media coverage includes Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Scripps Howard News Service, Creator's Syndicate, Savannah Morning News, San Jose Mercury News, Harrisburg Patriot News, Austin American-Statesman, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Wilmington News Journal, Bay Area Magazine, Mediabistro.com, and much more. Listen to an excerpt from The Emperor Of Nihon-Ja on audio! New Next Week A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, And The Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz (The Penguin Press, 5/2) [image]In A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, And The Things That Really Matter, literary critic William Deresiewicz looks back at his youth and eloquently explains how everything he learned in life he learned from reading Jane Austen. Anchoring his recollections in Austen's six great novels—Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abby, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility—Deresiewicz goes novel by novel, lesson by lesson, to marry the things Austen has to teach us with how he learned them in his own life. For the author, these six books challenge some of our most essential beliefs about the way we live: beliefs about growing up, making mistakes, and being happy. Look for upcoming reviews in the Boston Globe, Slate, Seattle Times, and Bloomberg. Features are also coming on Huffington Post, WowWow.com, and MarieClaire.com. An op-ed will also appear in The Wall Street Journal. How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley (Riverhead Trade Paperback, 5/3) [image]The paperback of New York Times-bestselling author Sloane Crosley's How Did You Get This Number drops on May 3, and the media definitely has her number. Crosley will appear as a pop culture panelist on The Joy Behar Show on May 19th. Online interviews include Interview magazine, Vanity Fair, Blackbook, and The Economist. Following an event at New York's McNally Jackson on May 4, Crosley hits the road on a national tour that includes events in Minneapolis, Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Local broadcast media includes "The Fox Morning News" in Minneapolis, KING-TV's "New Day Northwest" in Seattle and KXAN-TV's "News at Noon" in Austin, with print interviews running in The Miami Herald, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Brooklyn Paper, and The East Bay Express. An oldie but goodie, Sloane Crosley comments on why question marks are dangerous in this episode of The Literary Life. Growing at the Speed of Life: A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden by Graham Kerr (Perigee, 3/1) [image]Former "Galloping Gourmet" Graham Kerr, author of the new Growing at the Speed of Life: A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden, has been busy this spring. While on tour in March, Kerr travelled to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco for book signings and received feature coverage in USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, a cooking segment on Rachael Ray (which you can watch here), a national radio satellite tour to over fifteen markets, and interviews on Portland's KATU "AM Northwest" and San Francisco's KGO "View From the Bay." This week Kerr will head to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books for a cooking demonstration and book signing. He will demonstrate various ways one can use yogurt cheese in their meals and talk about his spring gardening plans. Following the festival, Kerr will return to New York to tape his second appearance on Rachael Ray for an episode focused on "food legends." Growing at the Speed of Life takes readers through the first year in Kerr's kitchen garden, sharing lessons learned from his circle of local knowledge providers. From putting together a greenhouse to planting his first seeds and harvesting and sharing his first crop with others in need, Kerr provides a tour through his gardening adventures and profiles sixty readily available garden vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Read an excerpt from Growing at the Speed of Life.
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Editor's Note: I'm going to have this up straight from the PR while I format. Refresh for the latest in linking and proper italics. Congratulations to all the nominees. -- Tom Spurgeon ***** The nominees were announced late Thursday for the 2011 iteration of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Return Of The Dapper Men led all nominees with five total; Morning Glories and Locke & Key managed four each. The awards are given out during a ceremony the Friday evening of Comic-Con International. ...
Editor's Note: I'm going to have this up straight from the PR while I format. Refresh for the latest in linking and proper italics. Congratulations to all the nominees. -- Tom Spurgeon ***** The nominees were announced late Thursday for the 2011 iteration of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Return Of The Dapper Men led all nominees with five total; Morning Glories and Locke & Key managed four each. The awards are given out during a ceremony the Friday evening of Comic-Con International. Your nominees are: ***** Best Short Story * "Bart on the Fourth of July," by Peter Kuper, in Bart Simpson #54 (Bongo) * "Batman, in Trick for the Scarecrow," by Billy Tucci, in DCU Halloween Special 2010 (DC) * "Cinderella," by Nick Spencer and Rodin Esquejo, in Fractured Fables (Silverline Books/Image) * "Hamburgers for One," by Frank Stockton, in Popgun vol. 4 (Image) * "Little Red Riding Hood," by Bryan Talbot and Camilla d'Errico, in Fractured Fables (Silverline Books/Image) * "Post Mortem," by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, in I Am an Avenger #2 (Marvel) ***** Best Single Issue (or One-Shot) * The Cape, by Joe Hill, Jason Ciaramella, and Zack Howard (IDW) * Fables #100, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and others (Vertigo/DC) * Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse) * Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom #1: "Sparrow," by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW) * Unknown Soldier #21: "A Gun in Africa," by Joshua Dysart and Rick Veitch (Vertigo/DC) ***** Best Continuing Series * Chew, by John Layman and Rob Guillory (Image) * Echo, by Terry Moore (Abstract Studio) * Locke & Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW) * Morning Glories, by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma (Shadowline/Image) * Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media) * Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra (Vertigo/DC) ***** Best Limited Series * Baltimore: The Plague Ships, by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Ben Stenbeck (Dark Horse) * Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love, by Chris Roberson and Shawn McManus (Vertigo/DC) * Daytripper, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Vertigo/DC) * Joe the Barbarian, by Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy (Vertigo/DC) * Stumptown, by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth (Oni) ***** Best New Series * American Vampire, by Scott Snyder, Stephen King, and Rafael Albuquerque (Vertigo/DC) * iZombie, by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred (Vertigo/DC) * Marineman, by Ian Churchill (Image) * Morning Glories, by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma (Shadowline/Image) * Superboy, by Jeff Lemire and Pier Gallo (DC) ***** Best Publication for Kids * Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, by Sara Stewart Taylor and Ben Towle (Center for Cartoon Studies/Disney/Hyperion) * Amelia Rules!: True Things (Adults Don't Want Kids to Know), by Jimmy Gownley (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster) * Binky to the Rescue, by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press) * Scratch9, by Rob M. Worley and Jason T. Kruse (Ape Entertainment) * Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC) * The Unsinkable Walker Bean, by Aaron Renier (First Second) ***** Best Publication for Teens * Ghostopolis, by Doug TenNapel (Scholastic Graphix) * Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, by Barry Deutsch (Amulet Books) * Return of the Dapper Men, by Jim McCann and Janet Lee (Archaia) * Smile, by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic Graphix) * Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, by G. Neri and Randy DuBurke (Lee & Low) ***** Best Humor Publication * Afrodisiac, by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca (Adhouse) * Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book, by Ian Boothby, John Delaney, and Dan Davis (Bongo) * Drinking at the Movies, by Julia Wertz (Three Rivers Press/Crown) * I Thought You Would Be Funnier, by Shannon Wheeler (BOOM!) * Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953, by Dave Kellett (Small Fish Studios) * Prime Baby, by Gene Luen Yang (First Second) ***** Best Anthology * The Anthology Project, edited by Joy Ang and Nick Thornborrow (Lucidity Press) * Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators, edited by Nicolas Finet (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) * Liquid City, vol. 2, edited by Sonny Liew and Lim Cheng Tju (Image) * Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, edited by Paul Morrissey and David Petersen (Archaia) * Trickster: Native American Tales, edited by Matt Dembicki (Fulcrum Books) ***** Best Digital Comic * Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl, www.abominable.cc * The Bean, by Travis Hanson, www.beanleafpress.com * Lackadaisy, by Tracy Butler, www.lackadaisycats.com * Max Overacts, by Caanan Grall, http://occasionalcomics.com * Zahra's Paradise, by Amir and Khalil, www.zahrasparadise.com ***** Best Reality-Based Work * It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics) * Picture This: The Nearsighted Monkey Book, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly) * Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir, by Joyce Farmer (Fantagraphics) * Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Terrible Axe Man of New Orleans, by Rick Geary (NBM) * Two Generals, by Scott Chantler (McClelland & Stewart) * You'll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage, by Carol Tyler (Fantagraphics) ***** Best Graphic Album -- New * Elmer, by Gerry Alanguilan (SLG) * Finding Frank and His Friend: Previously Unpublished Work by Clarence 'Otis' Dooley, by Melvin Goodge (Curio & Co.) * Market Day, by James Sturm (Drawn & Quarterly) * Return of the Dapper Men, by Jim McCann and Janet Lee (Archaia) * Wilson, by Daniel Clowes (Drawn & Quarterly) ***** Best Graphic Album -- Reprint * The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects, by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse) * Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson (Dark Horse) * Motel Art Improvement Service, by Jason Little (Dark Horse) * The Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Crisis, by Ian Boothby, James Lloyd, and Steve Steere Jr. (Abrams Comicarts) * Tumor, by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon (Archaia) * Wednesday Comics, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC) ***** Best Adaptation from Another Work * Dante's Divine Comedy, adapted by Seymour Chwast (Bloomsbury) * The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, adapted by Joann Sfar (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) * The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, adapted by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young (Marvel) * 7 Billion Needles, vols. 1 and 2, adapted from Hal Clement's Needle by Nobuaki Tadano (Vertical) * Silverfin: A James Bond Adventure, adapted by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker (Disney/Hyperion Books) ***** Best Archival Collection/Project -- Strips * Archie: The Complete Daily Newspaper Strips, 1946–1948, by Bob Montana, edited by Greg Goldstein (IDW) * 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective, by G. B. Trudeau (Andrews McMeel) * George Heriman's Krazy Kat: A Celebration of Sundays, edited by Patrick McDonnell and Peter Maresca (Sunday Press Books) * Polly and Her Pals Complete Sunday Comics, vol. 1, by Cliff Sterrett, edited by Dean Mullaney (IDW) * Roy Crane's Captain Easy, vol. 1, edited by Rick Norwood (Fantagraphics) ***** Best Archival Collection/Project -- Comic Books * Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer Artist's Edition, edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW) * The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read!, edited by Jim Trombetta (Abrams Comicart) * The Incal Classic Collection, by Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius (Humanoids) * Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts, edited by Art Spiegelman (The Library of America) * Thirteen "Going on Eighteen", by John Stanley (Drawn & Quarterly) ***** Best U.S. Edition of International Material * It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics) * The Killer: Modus Vivendi, by Matz and Luc Jacamon (Archaia) * King of the Flies, Book One: Hallorave, by Mezzo and Pirus (Fantagraphics) * The Littlest Pirate King, by David B. and Pierre Mac Orlan (Fantagraphics) * Salvatore, by Nicolas De Crécy (NBM) ***** Best U.S. Edition of International Material -- Asia * Ayako, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical) * Bunny Drop, by Yumi Unita (Yen Press) * A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, by Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics) * House of Five Leaves, by Natsume Ono (VIZ Media) * Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media) ***** Best Writer * Ian Boothby, Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book; Futurama Comics #47–50; Simpsons Comics #162, 168; Simpsons Super Spectacular #11–12 (Bongo) * Joe Hill, Lock & Key (IDW) * John Layman, Chew (Image) * Jim McCann, Return of the Dapper Men (Archaia) * Nick Spencer, Morning Glories, Shuddertown, Forgetless, Existence 3.0 (Image) ***** Best Writer/Artist * Dan Clowes, Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly) * Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit (IDW) * Joe Kubert, Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965 (DC) * Terry Moore, Echo (Abstract Studio) * James Sturm, Market Day (Drawn & Quarterly) * Naoki Urasawa, Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys (VIZ Media) ***** Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team * Richard Corben, Hellboy (Dark Horse) * Stephen DeStefano, Lucky in Love Book One: A Poor Man's Story (Fantagraphics) * Rob Guillory, Chew (Image) * Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key (IDW) * Skottie Young, The Marvelous Land of Oz (Marvel) ***** Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art) * Lynda Barry, Picture This: The Nearsighted Monkey Book (Drawn & Quarterly) * Brecht Evens, The Wrong Place (Drawn & Quarterly) * Juanjo Guarnido, Blacksad (Dark Horse) * Janet Lee, Return of the Dapper Men (Archaia) * Eric Liberge, On the Odd Hours (NBM) * Carol Tyler, You'll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage (Fantagraphics) ***** Best Cover Artist * Rodin Esquejo, Morning Glories (Shadowline/Image) * Dave Johnson, Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain (Dark Horse); Unknown Soldier (Vertigo/DC); Punisher/Max, Deadpool (Marvel) * Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Baltimore: The Plague Ships (Dark Horse) * David Petersen, Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard (Archaia) * Yuko Shimizu, The Unwritten (Vertigo/DC) ***** Best Coloring * Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules!: True Things (Adults Don't Want Kids to Know), Amelia Rules!: The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular, by Jimmy Gownley (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster) * Metaphrog (Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers), Louis: Night Salad (Metaphrog) * Dave Stewart, Hellboy, BPRD, Baltimore, Let Me In (Dark Horse); Detective Comics (DC); Neil Young's Greendale, Daytripper, Joe the Barbarian (Vertigo/DC) * Hilary Sycamore, City of Spies, Resistance, Booth, Brain Camp, Solomon's Thieves (First Second) * Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library 20: Lint (Drawn & Quarterly) ***** Best Lettering * Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit (IDW) * Dan Clowes, Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly) * Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules!: True Things (Adults Don't Want Kids to Know), Amelia Rules!: The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular, by Jimmy Gownley (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster) * Todd Klein, Fables, The Unwritten, Joe the Barbarian, iZombie (Vertigo/DC); Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom (WildStorm/DC); SHIELD (Marvel); Driver for the Dead (Radical) * Doug TenNapel, Ghostopolis (Scholastic Graphix) * Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library 20: Lint (Drawn & Quarterly) ***** Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism * Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows) * The Beat, produced by Heidi MacDonald (www.comicsbeat.com) * ComicBookResources, produced by Jonah Weiland (www.comicbookresources.com) * ComicsAlliance, produced by Laura Hudson (www.comicsalliance.com) * The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon (www.comicsreporter.com) * USA Today Comics Section, by Life Section Entertainment Editor Dennis Moore; Comics Section Lead, John Geddes (www.usatoday.com/life/comics/index) ***** Best Comics-Related Book * Doonesbury and the Art of G. B. Trudeau, by Brian Walker (Yale University Press) * Fire and Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics, by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics) * The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen, by Denis Kitchen and Charles Brownstein, edited by John Lind and Diana Schutz (Dark Horse Books) * Shazam! The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal, by Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear (Abrams Comicarts) * 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, by Paul Levitz (TASCHEN) ***** Best Publication Design * Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer Artist's Edition, designed by Randall Dahlk (IDW) * Polly and Her Pals Complete Sunday Comics, vol. 1, designed by Lorraine Turner and Dean Mullaney (IDW) * Return of the Dapper Men, designed by Todd Klein (Archaia) * 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, designed by Josh Baker (TASCHEN) * Two Generals, designed by Jennifer Lum (McClelland & Stewart) ***** Hall of Fame Judges' Choices: * Ernie Bushmiller * Jack Jackson * Martin Nodell * Lynd Ward ***** *****
[Apple, Macintosh]
(
TidBITS: Apple News for the Rest of Us)
A long-awaited cloud-based music storage service has launched — but it’s not from Apple or Google. Amazon.com has beaten both companies to the punch with Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. Cloud Drive offers online storage accessible anywhere, much like a simple version of Dropbox and SugarSync. Cloud Player lets you listen to music you’ve stored in your Cloud Drive through a Web app or Android app, as long as the audio is encoded as unprotected AAC and MP3 files. Cloud Drive and Cloud Playe ...
A long-awaited cloud-based music storage service has launched — but it’s not from Apple or Google. Amazon.com has beaten both companies to the punch with Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. Cloud Drive offers online storage accessible anywhere, much like a simple version of Dropbox and SugarSync. Cloud Player lets you listen to music you’ve stored in your Cloud Drive through a Web app or Android app, as long as the audio is encoded as unprotected AAC and MP3 files.
Cloud Drive and Cloud Player won’t have a huge impact immediately. There’s no iOS app, and the method of moving files and music in and out is extremely irritating. Amazon will improve on all this, having achieved the first-mover advantage on Apple and Google. Amazon wants to lock people into uploading massive amounts of music and files, forcing a subsequent competitor to overcome the burden of convincing users to transfer and manage files on yet another service.
The fundamental flaw with cloud-based streaming music services is metered mobile broadband. If you can’t store music on your phone or tablet, and you must stream it — even from your own collection — you could wind up paying tens of dollars extra per month for something that’s free today when you store the music you want on your mobile device.
Cloud Drive Compared -- Cloud Drive includes a free 5 GB of storage for Amazon account holders; accounts are free to set up if you are in the statistically unlikely position of using the Internet and not having an Amazon account. If you purchase at least one MP3 album from Amazon, they bump your storage to 20 GB for a year at no extra cost. You can also purchase higher amounts of storage, ranging from 20 to 1,000 GB for $1 per GB per year.
This is cheaper than the retail price for Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), which charges $0.14 per month ($1.68 per year) for each GB stored up to 1 TB, but lacks a friendly front end. (You can use Transmit, Cyberduck, Interarchy and other file transfer tools to manage S3 storage as though it were an FTP server.) S3 also levies fees for moving data around: $0.10 per GB uploaded and $0.15 per GB downloaded (after 1 GB free each month).
In contrast, Google charges $0.25 per year per GB for storage added to any of its app services, with no transfer fees. With some third-party software help, you can use Google Apps storage just like other storage offerings. Dropbox’s standard storage plans offer 50 GB for $10 per month or 100 GB for $20 per month, which works out to $2.40 per GB per year. Dropbox also include desktop synchronization, of course, which isn’t part of Amazon Cloud Drive. (Dropbox relies on Amazon S3, as do many of the online storage firms.)
Currently, you upload files to Cloud Drive via a file dialog in a Web browser, which is an awful interface. Downloads are also done via a Web browser, which is slightly better. I suspect, as with the Kindle ecosystem, we will see Amazon producing native apps for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and other platforms to make file transfer and sync easier, and it’s also likely that they’ll open the service up to existing file transfer tools. Amazon could wind up competing directly against Dropbox et al., but I doubt it will go after them head on in terms of features. Amazon’s consumer-facing interests lie in the media arena, not in computer services.
Several colleagues noted wryly on Twitter that Amazon has two wonderfully dissonant statements on the reliability of storage. On the Cloud Drive: Learn More page, the company enthuses,
“Store files in your Cloud Drive and never worry about losing them if your computer crashes, or is lost or stolen.”
But if you read the Terms of Use agreement, Amazon’s legal beagles say,
“5.3 Security. We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You’re responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files.”
The fine print is there to protect Amazon from undue penalties in an extreme case. Amazon’s S3 storage system has a high level of built-in redundancy for all data stored, both within a single data center and across its many data centers. Cloud Drive is likely reliable to an obscene numbers of nines — Amazon claims 99.999999999 percent for S3 “durability” — but that last 0.000000001 is a financial killer for your company if you promise 100 percent, and are sued as a result of lost data. More likely than hardware failure would be damage or theft due to attackers; we have to assume that Amazon is becoming an increasingly large target.
Cloud Player -- As with the interface problems with Cloud Drive, the limits on Cloud Player are currently severe. You must download the Amazon MP3 Uploader — an Adobe AIR application — to handle uploading music, and that experience, as with most with AIR apps, is horrible. The non-native interface, non-intuitive behavior, sluggishness, and mysterious errors (like a timeout 90 percent of the way through scanning my library) are all frustrating.
Despite iTunes’s well-established dominance, and Amazon MP3 Uploader automatically finding the iTunes music folder, the app doesn’t scan the folder and use metadata to reassemble album and artist information. Instead, it relies on the folder structure to present upload choices. I have thousands of music files, and the iTunes internal folder structure isn’t a sensible way to sort through them. A separate downloader app lets you transfer items from the library directly into iTunes or Windows Media Player. You can also download files via a Web browser.
Amazon cheaped out by going the AIR route instead of building native apps. That’s likely due to deadlines: you can prototype and deploy a cross-platform service with AIR far faster than separate native apps.
Cloud Player’s only supported file formats are AAC and MP3. The files must be unprotected — that is, not wrapped with digital rights management (DRM) encryption. Amazon launched its MP3 store without DRM, and Apple was able to shed its DRM in April 2009. Nearly all music sold as downloadable files in the United States is DRM free; this is true in most other countries as well. (Older DRM-protected iTunes music can be upgraded for 30 cents a pop to strip the DRM.)
Amazon doesn’t make previous Amazon MP3 purchases appear in Cloud Drive, but purchases made after installation will show up there automatically.
Playing back music is a much better experience, so long as you are using a desktop browser or an Android app. Metadata is used here, and artists and albums are organized appropriately. I tried to use the Web app in iOS, and after being told that I had an incompatible browser, the Web app appeared but was unable to play music on my phone. Being unprepared for use from iOS devices at launch seems like a silly oversight.
Cloudy with a Chance of Apple -- Of course, there have long been streaming-music subscription services that store all the music remotely and play what you want on demand from a library of millions of songs. The first iteration of such services downloaded songs on demand, stored them in an encrypted format, and you didn’t need an Internet connection to play those files. The songs were deleted if and when your subscription ended or if storage needed to be freed up. This was a necessity for music players with no network connection. (Several of these services also included credit to download up to ten tracks per month permanently for a $10 to $15 per month unlimited play subscription.)
The shift to on-demand streaming emerged from the growth of smartphones and 3G networks, as well as Wi-Fi hotspots and hotzones. If you have Internet access wherever you are, why mess about with syncing music before you go or worrying about how much storage you have? Instead, you start streaming the music wherever you are, whenever you want it, dealing only with the time it takes to buffer the start of a song. These new services include Last.fm, Rdio, Spotify (outside the United States), and Pandora. All have free and premium flavors.
This makes you reliant on Internet service, though. If you're out of range of a cell network or near the limit of your monthly tiered data plan, and you can't find some handy Wi-Fi, you’re listening to dead air. With tiered data plans in the United States including just 200 or 250 MB of usage, it would be easy to run through that with frequent music playback over a cell network, and face overage fees.
Apple has so far firmly resisted this trend, relying on downloadable quanta: individual songs purchased individually or in a “bundle” of an album. Apple has said many times that people want to “own” their music, by which the firm means not that you have the rights associated with true ownership, but rather that you’re given a limited license to play the music forever on devices under your direct control. To listen to your music, you have to be at a computer or have remembered to sync songs to a mobile device. However, Apple watchers have been expecting a shift for years.
In 2009, Apple bought Lala, a streaming-music service, and shut it down months later. The suspicion was that Lala would merge into something Apple was already building. Perhaps all iTunes songs you ever purchased would miraculously also be available for listening to over the Internet? Or Apple would launch some unique combination of subscription, streaming, and cloud storage?
Apple also has an enormous data center in North Carolina that can house hundreds of thousands of servers and has been rumored to be the ultimate home of either a streaming or cloud-hosted music service. Right now, it’s probably handling the relatively modest load of MobileMe, which comes with 20 GB of storage at a hefty annual fee (along with services like mail and sync), but doesn’t provide any way to play music directly. It may also be serving the Mac App Store, although there’s no easy way to tell.
For now, we can only wait to see what, if anything, Apple releases, and, if it happens, how it stacks up against the current competition.
No Harm in Trying -- I have three conclusions about Amazon’s new Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services. First, there’s no harm trying them. They’re free. Second, they’re a great shot across the bow of competitors, likely to produce better products for mobile music access by everyone in the music arena. Third, they will get better, as all Amazon products have.
Amazon has raised the bar. The question is whether Apple leaps over it with breathtaking indifference or limbos under it with something that doesn’t live up to the bookseller’s first pass.
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[Books]
(
The New York Review of Books)
Robert Darnton John Pope-Hennessey; drawing by David Levine Judge Denny Chin’s opinion in rejecting the settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who sued it for infringement of their copyrights can be read as both as a map of wrong turns taken in the past and as an invitation to design a better route into the digital future. Extrapolating from the dense, 48-page text that accompanied the judge’s March 23 decision, it is possible to locate six crucial points where things ...
Robert Darnton
John Pope-Hennessey; drawing by David Levine
Judge Denny Chin’s opinion in rejecting the settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who sued it for infringement of their copyrights can be read as both as a map of wrong turns taken in the past and as an invitation to design a better route into the digital future. Extrapolating from the dense, 48-page text that accompanied the judge’s March 23 decision, it is possible to locate six crucial points where things went awry:
First, Google abandoned its original plan to digitize books in order to provide online searching. According to that plan, you would have been able to use Google to search the contents of books for a particular word or brief passage, but would not have been able to view or download a lengthy excerpt or an entire book. Thus, Google could have justified its display of snippets of text in the search results by invoking the doctrine of fair use. In this way, it might have won its case against the plaintiffs, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, and at the same time it could have helped revive fair use as a legitimate means of spreading knowledge—for example, in making digitized material available for teaching purposes.
Instead, Google chose to make its opponents its partners in a gigantic new library and book business, Google Book Search. The business plan led to a second misstep, because it included a dubious opt-out clause. Authors of out-of-print books who failed to notify Google of their refusal to participate in its project were deemed to have accepted it.
Third, in setting terms for the digitization of orphan books—copyrighted works whose rights holders are not known—the settlement eliminated the possibility of competition. It gave Google exclusive protection against legal action by any rights holders who might be identified—no small matter, as there are probably several million orphan books (recent estimates go as high as five million), and the damages for copyright infringement could begin at $100,000 per title. This provision made Google and its partners effective proprietors of works they had not created. According to the original version of the settlement, they were to receive revenue from the sale of the orphan books according to a standard formula for dividing the pie: 37 percent to Google, 63 percent to the plaintiffs. That provision was corrected in a revised version of the settlement, but the Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) continued to give Google legal protection that would be denied to any of its potential competitors. It amounted to changing copyright law by litigation instead of legislation.
Fourth, rights held by authors and publishers located outside the United States raised similar problems. Foreign rights holders objected that the digitization of their books would violate international copyright law, particularly in the case of out-of-print books, which Google proposed to market unless it received opt-out notification from the authors or their estates. The ASA met most of those objections by eliminating copyrighted books that were published abroad, except in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. But foreigners continued to protest about the potential violation of their rights and noted that they, too, had an orphan book problem.
Fifth, the settlement was an attempt to resolve a class action suit, but the plaintiffs did not adequately represent the class to which they belonged. The Authors Guild has 8,000 members but the number of living writers who have published works during the last half century probably amounts to far more than one hundred thousand. As Judge Chin observed, 6,800 living writers—nearly as many as are members of the Guild—chose to opt out of Google Book Search, and many objected in memoranda to the court that they did not consider themselves represented by the Guild. Some, especially academics who do not live from their pens, said they cared more about the diffusion of their writing than about the small amounts that they might gain by sales.
Sixth, in the course of administering its sales, both of individual books and of access to its data base by means of institutional subscriptions, Google might abuse readers’ privacy by accumulating information about their behavior. Google could know who its readers were, precisely what they read, and when they did the reading. The ASA provided some assurances about this danger, but Judge Chin recommended more, should the ASA be revised and resubmitted to the court.
The cumulative effect of these objections, elaborated in 500 memoranda filed with the court and endorsed in large part by Judge Chin’s decision, could give the impression that the settlement, even in its amended version, is so flawed that it deserves to be pronounced dead and buried. Yet it has many positive features. Above all, it could provide millions of people with access to millions of books. If the price were moderate, the benefit would be extraordinary, and the result would give new life to old books, which rarely get consulted from their present locations on the remote shelves or distant storage facilities of research libraries. Google also committed itself to furnish its service free of charge on at least one terminal in all public libraries, to adapt the digitized texts to the needs of the visually impaired, and to make its data available for large-scale, quantitative research of the “non-consumptive” kind.
How can these advantages be preserved without the accompanying drawbacks? By creating a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)—that is, a collection of works in all formats that would make our cultural heritage available online and free of charge to everyone everywhere.
Having argued so often for this alternative to Google Book Search, I may fall victim to the syndrome known in France as preaching for one’s own saint. Instead of repeating the arguments, I would like to show how the case for the DPLA would look if seen from the perspective of similar attempts in other countries.
The most impressive attempts to create national digital libraries are taking shape in Norway and The Netherlands. They have state support, and they involve plans to digitize books covered by copyright, even those that are currently in print, by means of collective agreements—not legalistic devices like the class action suit employed by Google and its partners, but voluntary arrangements, which reconcile the interests of the authors and publishers who own the rights with those of readers who want access to everything in their national languages. Of course, the number of books in Norwegian and Dutch is small compared with those in English. To form an idea of what could be done in the United States, it is better to study another venture, the pan-European digital library known as Europeana.
Europeana is still in a formative phase, but its basic structure is well developed. Instead of accumulating collections of its own, it will function as an aggregator of aggregators—that is, it will standardize data that flows in from providers in centralized locations, which themselves will have integrated data derived from many individual sources. Information will therefore be accumulated and coordinated at three levels: particular libraries will digitize their collections; national or regional centers will integrate them into central data bases; and Europeana will transform those data bases, from 27 constituent countries, into a single, seamless network. To the users, all these currents of information will remain invisible. They will simply search for an item—a book, an image, a recording, or a video—and the system will direct them to a digitized version of it, wherever it may be, making it available for downloading on a personal computer or a hand-held device.
To deliver such service, the system will require not only an effective technological architecture but also a way of coordinating the information required to locate the digitized items—“metadata,” as librarians call it. The staff of Europeana at The Hague has perfected a code to harmonize the metadata that will flow into it from every corner of the Continent. Unlike Google, it will not store digital files in a single data base or server farm. It will operate as a nerve center for what is known as a “distributed network,” leaving libraries, archives, and museums to digitize and preserve their own collections in the capillary system of the organic whole.
A digital library for America might well follow this model, although Europeana has not yet proven its viability. When a prototype went live on November 20, 2008, it was flooded with so many attempts at searches that the system crashed. But that failure can be taken as testimony to the demand for such a mega-library. Since then, Europeana has enlarged its capacity. It will resume functioning at full tilt in the near future; and by 2015 it expects to make thirty million items, a third of them books, available free of charge.
Who will pay for it? The European Union, drawing on contributions from its member states. (Europeana’s current budget is 4,923,000 euros, but most of the expenses fall on the institutions that create and preserve the digital files.) This financial model may not be suitable for the United States, but we Americans benefit from something that Europe lacks, a rich array of independent foundations dedicated to the public welfare. By combining forces, a few dozen foundations could provide enough money to get the DPLA up and running. It is impossible at this point to provide even ballpark estimates of the overall cost, but it should come to less than the 750 million euros that President Sarkozy pledged for the digitization of France’s “cultural patrimony.”
Once its basic structure has been erected, the DPLA could be enlarged incrementally. And after it has proven its capacity to provide services—for education at all levels, for the information needs of businesses, for research in every conceivable field—it might attract public funds. Long-term sustainability would remain a problem to be solved.
Other problems must be confronted in the near future. As the Google case demonstrated, nearly everything published since 1923, when copyright restrictions begin to apply, is out of bounds for digitization and distribution. The DPLA must respect copyright. In order to succeed where Google failed, it will have to include several million orphan books; and it will not be able to do that unless Congress clears the way by appropriate legislation. Congress nearly passed orphan-book bills in 2006 and 2008. It failed in part because of the uncertainty surrounding Google Book Search. A not-for-profit digital library truly devoted to the public welfare could be of such benefit to their constituents that members of Congress might pass a new bill carefully designed to protect the DPLA from litigation should holders of rights to orphan books be located and bring suit for damages.
Even better, Congress could create a mechanism to compensate authors for the downloading of books that are out of print but covered by copyright. Voluntary collective agreements among authors of in-print books, similar to those in Norway and The Netherlands, could make much contemporary literature accessible through the DPLA. The copyright problems connected with works produced outside the United States might be resolved by agreements between the DPLA and Europeana as well as by similar alliances with aggregators on other continents. “Born digital” items in diverse formats (among them the growing number of ebooks that do not also appear in printed form) pose still more problems. But the non-commercial character of the DPLA and its commitment to the public good would make all such difficulties look less formidable than they seemed to be when they were confronted by a company intent on maximizing profit at the expense of the public.
In short, the collapse of the settlement has a great deal to teach us. It should help us emulate the positive aspects of Google Book Search and avoid the pitfalls that made Google’s enterprise flawed from the beginning. The best way to do so and to provide the American people with what they need in order to thrive in the new information age is to create a Digital Public Library of America.
[Tech]
(
IndianWeb2.com - Web 2.0 and Technology Startup News and Reviews)
D-Link Brings the Internet to Your TV With Boxee Box PR Newswire — December 26, 2010 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 26, 2010 /PRNewswire/ – - D-Link Selects Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor to power Boxee Box; Available in the Middle East & Africa from January 2011 The way you experience media on your TV will be ...
D-Link Brings the Internet to Your TV With Boxee Box
PR Newswire — December 26, 2010
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 26, 2010 /PRNewswire/ –
- D-Link Selects Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor to power Boxee Box; Available in the Middle East & Africa from January 2011
The way you experience media on your TV will be revolutionized with the Middle Eastern & African availability of the Boxee Box by D-Link in January 2011. The striking black box allows users to watch available movies and TV programmes from the Internet, stream videos from nearly any website, exchange recommendations with friends using social media sites like Facebook, organize and enjoy personal music, photos and videos, and browse the Internet, all from a simple to use remote. The Boxee Box by D-Link gives consumers a new, exciting and easy-to-use way to experience free or paid for content on the Internet, changing the way they interact with it forever.
As part of the Middle Eastern & African availability, D-Link announced that the Intel Atom CE4100, Intel’s system-on-a-chip designed for TV and Internet integration, will power the Boxee Box. The powerful Intel-based hardware allows Boxee’s open software platform to deliver up to full 1080p HD over a wired or Wireless N network. With hundreds of apps already available and an intuitive interface, the Boxee Box by D-Link gives users unparalleled access to on-demand entertainment and newfound control over their TV.
The Boxee Box by D-Link has already received critical industry acclaim, and a ‘first look’ at the media device earned it the accolade of ‘Best of Innovations in the Home Entertainment’ category at CES in January 2010. Since then, D-Link and Boxee have worked closely together to add further capabilities and content to the platform that allows you to make the most of the huge library of free and paid content available on the Internet, as well as easy and secure access to your own digital content and social media networks. Boxee Box by D-Link content providers and apps include the BBC, Last.fm, CNET, CNN, Channel 4, Comedy Central, Facebook, ITV, MTV Music, mySpaceTV, YouTube, Flickr, and Picasa.
Harrison Albert, Regional Director at D-Link Middle East & Africa commented, “D-Link has always been committed to pioneering Digital Home experiences for consumers, transforming the home network so that new entertainment possibilities can become a reality. The Boxee Box by D-Link is the start of a new revolution in home entertainment as we bring the limitless world of Internet content to the TV. The Boxee Box by D-Link will be a catalyst for smart TV within the Digital Home, allowing consumers to discover new content and enjoy it in high definition.”
“Too many people have to enjoy what they want to watch hunched over a laptop all alone,” stated Andrew Kippen, vice president of marketing for Boxee, “We’ve partnered with D-Link to come up with what we believe is the best way to enjoy the best content from the Internet on a TV – no PC required.”
The Boxee Box by D-Link will be available in January 2011 from all IT retailers in the MENA & Africa region.
Internet freedom on your HDTV
The Boxee Box is one of the world’s first media devices capable of browsing the Internet directly from a TV without the need for a computer. With its highly intuitive user interface, you can personalize and create a bespoke home screen categorizing all your media on one screen.
Plays your digital stuff
The device can be used to play and view practically all common video, music, and photo formats from home media collections and the Internet in up to full 1080p High Definition.
Tailored to the sofa
The unique QWERTY remote control means that accessing content already available on the Boxee Box, navigating the Internet for new content and consuming personal entertainment is as fun and easy as on a computer. Users can also use free remote apps for the iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre in addition to the standard Boxee Box remote.
See what your friends are watching
Core social features of the Boxee Box make it easy for friends to discover new content from each other through social networks like Facebook, Twitter and more. Users can share anything they’re watching or listening to with their friends on Boxee and other social networks with just a few clicks on the remote.
An expanding open platform
Since anyone can build on top of Boxee’s open App platform, users and companies can craft their own truly customized experience. If there isn’t already an application, the Boxee Box by D-Link allows you to create your own to access and organize your favorite content in a simple click.
D-Link brings smart TV to the Digital Home
For people looking to get more entertainment into their living room, the Boxee Box by D-Link quickly turns any HDTV into a Smart TV with near limitless content courtesy of the Internet. Boxee Box users will also receive dynamic firmware updates, meaning that software and service upgrades are ‘pushed’ directly to your device, so there is no need to perform awkward manual upgrades and you always have the latest service. Built-in security options like login access and parental controls ensure the Boxee Box by D-Link and its content remains secure.
“Consumers are ready for the smart TV experience, bringing Internet-based applications and services into the living room,” said Wilfred Martis, General Manager of Retail CE, Intel Digital Home Group.” Taking advantage of the advanced performance and media capabilities of the Intel Atom CE4100, the Boxee Box by D-Link is poised to make a major impact on smart TV.”
Boxee Box Hardware Specifications (DSM-380):
- HDMI port – Optical / Stereo Audio – Connects wirelessly (Wireless N capability) or wired to your network – Two-sided remote included with simple navigation and full QWERTY keyboard – 2 USB ports and 1 SD card slot – Supports all popular codecs and formats including Adobe Flash 10.1, MP3 and Divx – Intel Atom CE4100 processor
About Boxee
Boxee is changing the way people experience home entertainment by bringing TV shows, movies, videos, and music from the Internet to the TV. Boxee’s free software can be easily downloaded to any computer or embedded into living room devices. The company has quickly established itself as the best way to bring entertainment from different sources into one place – anything from a local collection of movies, TV shows, music, and photos, to streaming content from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr. Users can also discover new entertainment from their friends and share recommendations with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. More than a million people use Boxee to enjoy their entertainment. Learn how you can join them at http://www.boxee.tv.
D-Link and D-Link logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of D-Link Corporation or its subsidiaries. All other third party marks mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright (c) 2010 D-Link. All Rights Reserved
About D-Link:
D-Link is the global leader in connectivity for small, medium and large enterprise business networking. The company continues to strive towards excellence as an award-winning designer, developer and manufacturer of networking, broadband, digital electronics, voice and data communications solutions for the digital home, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Small to Medium Business (SMB), and Workgroup for Enterprise Environments. With millions of networking and connectivity products manufactured and shipped, D-Link is a dominant market participant and price/performance leader in the networking and communications market. D-Link ME Headquarters is located in Dubai, the UAE, Jebel Ali Free Zone South, P. O. Box 18224, Tel.: +971 4 880 9022, Fax: +971 4 880 9066. For general inquiries, contact: info.me@dlink-me.com or visit our website: http://www.dlink-me.com.
Press Contacts:
Nicole Maria Meier D-Link Middle East Tel.: +971-4-880-9022 Fax: +971-4-880-9066 E-Mail: nmeier@dlink-me.com
Andrew Kippen VP, Marketing Boxee 930 Montgomery St. #301 San Francisco, CA 94410 Tel: +1-415-287-7710 Email: andrew@boxee.tv
SOURCE D-Link
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