Tag Archives: digital books

Memories of Futures Past

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“To the Moon, Alice!”

Ever wanted to read some classic Science Fiction yet been unable to find a copy of your favourite author’s work?  I myself have been fruitlessly looking for a copy of E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen series for a while now.  Or, say you’re a fan of Murray Leinster.  His works are out there, but few and far between.

Well, someone’s decided to make sure that visions of future past don’t disappear into history. The good people over at engadget have a nice little profile of a bookstore in New York (Brooklyn to be specific) whose proprietors have dedicated themselves to bringing lost and out of copyright Science Fiction back into the mainstream.

Singularity&Co have dedicated themselves to:

Save the SCIFI!

Singularity&Co. is a team of time traveling archivists longing for futures past. 

Each month, our subscribers help us choose a vintage, out of print scifi book to rescue (with the rightsholders’ permission).  We’re bringing forgotten 20th century scifi into the 21st.

They’ve dedicated themselves to scanning rare and classic Science Fiction books into a digital format and then releasing them as ebooks.  If you’re an  aficionado of classic SciFi, these are the people to watch!

(Thanks to Mat Smith at engadget)

Google challenges Amazon for ebook supremacy

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Uh, oh.

Google’s on the move again.  Not content with being the foremost search engine on the web, nor the foremost video provider (Hello?  Youtube?), nor a young schoolboy’s best way to spy on that cute girl next door, nor dominating the email market…now they’ve decided to challenge Amazon’s dominance in the market of ebooks.

As of Monday December 6, 2010, Google has announced their plans to become the foremost provider of digital books in direct competition with Amazon.com.  With access to over 3 million current and out of copyright titles, they’re set to make them available (for a price) in a customer’s personal e-library (much like Amazon) and easily read on any internet ready device, whether it be phone, computer or ipod.  Surprisingly (?), while their titles will be compatible with most ereaders…the Amazon Kindle is not one of them.

So, what does this mean for your average eReader?  More access to out of print books? More variety in how they view these tomes?  More savings when choosing your next ebook?

Yes!  Yes! and um…maybe?

Amazon is not taking this lying down however, trying to block Google’s access to millions of out of print titles.  Should be interesting to see what happens. 

But seriously, if you want to take a look at the new Google bookstore, here’s your chance.

For further reading and an in depth story on developing Google/Amazon rivalry, Jefferson Graham’s article in USA Today is a must.