Christmas 2009

Offline until Saturday. Enjoy the pretty picture of London, England. Taken with an iPhone by @zainyk.

Misfits: What You’ll Never See On American TV

As I said in a prior post, I have people who alert me to things that pop up on TV in England.

This time I got a rogue recommendation from @ghostfinder who swears up and down that I first recommended this to him — even though I swear I’ve never seen it before.

It’s a six-episode series called Misfits. It’s recently finished running on a pay-TV channel called E4.

After the break, the reveal.

ACCESS Creates ePub eBook Software

This is the press release:

ACCESS Announces NetFront™Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0

Tokyo, Japan, December 22, 2009 – ACCESS CO., LTD., a global provider of advanced software technologies to the mobile and beyond-PC markets, today announced NetFront™ Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0, a mobile e-book reader that displays both vertical text for character-based Asian languages, such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and traditional horizontal text. NetFront Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0 supports EPUB, the free and open e-book standard developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). NetFront Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0 enables operators, mobile manufacturers and content providers to utilize the vast library of existing e-book content compliant with EPUB, making it easier for them to enter the expanding e-book business in Asian markets.

NetFront Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0 is based on ACCESS’ popular NetFront™ Browser, the world’s leading full Internet browser for mobile and beyond-PC devices, and includes enhanced features such as the ability for users to highlight body text, insert bookmarks and add notations while reading. NetFront Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0 joins ACCESS’ lineup of e-publishing solutions that includes NetFront™ Book Viewer v2.0* for text and comics, NetFront™ Book Builder* authoring tool and Keitai Booker’s™* Japanese e-book store.

“The global e-book market is expanding rapidly,” said Tomihisa Kamada, president, CEO and co-founder of ACCESS. “ACCESS has proven expertise in this market with the e-publishing ecosystem we have developed in Japan that provides not only software tools for authoring and viewing, but also Keitai Booker’s e-book store as a delivery solution. We intend to leverage our cutting-edge mobile technologies and industry experience to help grow e-book markets around the world.”

NetFront Book Viewer EPUB Edition v1.0 will be available for operators, handset manufacturers and content providers in global markets in early 2010.

This could be significant. Many mobile phones already run the NetFront browser. Adding ePub capability could be a selling point for that kind of cellphone.

ACCESS touts that 800 million phones/devices have its NetFront browser on them: ACCESS NetFront™ Deployments Surpass 800 Million Worldwide

ACCESS is also known for purchasing PalmSource and turning it into the ACCESS Linux Platform, an operating system on the ELSE phone.

The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains

Actual photo of Authors Guild letter being displayed by leadership

The Authors Guild has responded to the resignation letter of noted writer Ursula K. Le Guin.

This fragment of a sentence is emblematic of the absolute cluelessness of the organization’s alleged leadership:

Since creating a search engine is rather simple

What the fuck?

No, really.

Do they think a search engine is no more than the Search function they use in Microsoft Word or Open Office?

What the hell is wrong with the leadership of this Guild?

How is it possible to have leadership this inept, this ignorant, this clueless?

You have given away trillions of dollars of valuable metadata! You have condemned all current and future writers to peonage! You have annihilated the publishing industry completely!

All of you: RESIGN! TODAY!

Previously here:

Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!