Since the announcement of the iPad, magazine publishers have been scrambling to turn their magazines digital. But there’s one problem: unlike books, which have seen a surge in digital sales,  the magazine industry has no standard format that publishers, e-reading device manufacturers and consumers can rally around. That looks set to change as an influential [...]

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Google has confirmed that it plans a “June or July” launch for its long-signalled foray into the ebook selling business. Called Google Editions, it introduces a major new competitor into the ebook market. Google Editions’ approach will differ in a couple of significant ways from current outlets including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Apple. [...]

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I’ve just spotted a couple of children’s picture books in the iPhone App Store, including a title from the popular Milly Molly series. They’re the first fruits of a new technology called QBook from New Zealand company Kiwa Media that’s been under development for the past year. Billed as “the world’s first touch-enabled read-along colour [...]

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German company txtr has just launched the first iPhone ebook reading application to support the ePub open ebook format along with Adobe’s digital rights management. Sounds like more than a mouthful but this is very good news for ebook development. It potentially opens up the important iPhone channel to content from major commercial publishers who, [...]

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While commercial publishers work on their project to bring 1000 Great New Zealand ebooks to market, the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC) has been quietly working to convert its collection to free downloadable ebooks — 1150 of them available right now. The NZETC is afilliated to Victoria University in Wellington and has been busy digitising [...]

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