Middle Earth Interactive on Google Chrome

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Book-Based Holiday Movies: Catching Fire, Saving Mr. Banks, and Desolation of Smaug

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This looks like so much fun for Fans of the Hobbit - a journey through Middle Earth.



From Mashable

Fans have read about Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien's novels and they've seen it in in the subsequent films directed by Peter Jackson, but now they can fly above the elf city of Rivendell or sneak through the dark Trollshaws, all with the tap of the keyboard's direction keys or the swipe of a finger across a smartphone.
Users have a choice of a few areas of exploration, all of which appear in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which came out last year, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which will hit theaters on Dec. 13. You can use your laptop, tablet, phone and anything else that supports chrome to fly over the whole fictional land, but you can currently only walk around the Trollshaws, Rivendell and the haunted fortress of Dol Guldur. Players must watch their step, as the eerie music that accompanies the video-game like experience foreshadows demons that can attack from nowhere to drag you away.

From The Hobbit Blog

The online experience takes fans through an adventure that unfolds across an interactive map of Middle-earth. Users can zoom in to explore Trollshaw Forest, Rivendell and Dol Guldur, with new locations set to be added in the weeks ahead. Each destination on the map gives the visitor access to its history and the characters who inhabit it, or presents unique survival challenges in which fans can test their wits.
“Journey Through Middle-earth” is the first Chrome Experiment designed to bring a full 3D experience to mobile, with technology support for WebGL in Chrome for Android on devices with high-end graphics cards. Although WebGL isn’t supported on iOS, Chrome users can still experience most of “Journey Through Middle-earth” on their iPhones and iPads.

Too Modern for Me ~ A Library Without Books?

The first "library without books" has opened in San Antonio, Texas. Maybe the time has come for such a place, with so many people preferring homes without dusty bookshelves and their heart's desire on a Kindle Reader, but this story actually fills my heart with a sad autumnal longing for the old days. It worries me that libraries could actually become obsolete, or merely jobbers and distributors for eBook or textbook companies.

I'm not sure most people want that yet, or ever. Even the generation of my children grew up hugging their favorite Harry Potter or Narnia book. Will school bookfairs become obsolete as well? Oh, I hope not.

At my age, I'm doomed to be old-fashioned.

Via SmartPlanet

Bexar County, Texas is set to open the first bookless public library system in the United States. And, yes, it’s an actual brick and mortar library — or series of libraries throughout the county — without physical books, called BiblioTech.

“If you want to get an idea what it looks like, go into an Apple store,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff told The San Antonio Express.


In addition to the tech-heavy library, residents will be able to check out e-readers for two weeks, after which the device is unusable. Residents with e-readers can remotely access the library’s collection. The first location is scheduled to open this summer.

“[I]t should not be seen as a replacement to the traditional library,” Judge Wolff said in a statement. “It is an enhancement to the current system to which all County residents have access. The ever changing landscape of technology means that literacy is no longer about picking up a physical book and being able to comprehend the words; technology is changing the way we read, learn and thrive as citizens of the 21st Century.”

From Texas Monthly

Bexar County is not the first district that has tried to ditch books. The Tuscon-Pima Public Library system in Arizona opened a book-free branch in 2002, aiming to bring computer access to an area in need. However, after six years, the community demanded books and was granted its request. Two years ago, Newport, California pondered a bookless library that would serve as a community center and still offer books through a Netflix-esque system, but the plan was quickly quashed by public outcry.
Academic libraries have met more success. Nearby University of Texas at San Antonio has had an entirely digital library since 2010, and “the students love it,” according to Library Dean Krisellen Maloney.
In addition to the protest of physical book-lovers, an obstacle to the project is copyright technicalities. Major publishers, such as Penguin, have been hesitant to electronically partner with libraries, PCWorld notes. In 2011, Penguin pulled its e-books from libraries for security reasons. 

Digital Book News

When ebook companies fix prices:

Apple E-Book Price-Fixing Trial Set for 2013

The U.S. joined 15 states and Puerto Rico in claiming Apple, CBS Corp. (CBS) (CBS)’s Simon & Schuster, Lagardère SCA’s Hachette Book Group, News Corp. (NWSA) (NWSA)’s HarperCollins, Macmillan and Penguin colluded to fix prices of e-books. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who is presiding over the consolidated lawsuits in federal court in Manhattan, set the trial for June 3, 2013.

“Several parties, Apple and DOJ are pushing for a fast trial as fast as can be accomplished that is consistent with justice,” Cote said yesterday as she set the nonjury trial with Apple and other defendants that haven’t settled.

. . . Apple’s digital book-pricing practice may have cost consumers more than $100 million, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said at a Washington news conference after that suit was filed.

The case is U.S. v. Apple, 12-cv-02826, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Eeep . . . Big Brother is a . . . book? Ray Bradbury might have figured it would turn out like this!

WSJ: Your E-Book is Reading You

For centuries, reading has largely been a solitary and private act, an intimate exchange between the reader and the words on the page. But the rise of digital books has prompted a profound shift in the way we read, transforming the activity into something measurable and quasi-public.

The major new players in e-book publishing—Amazon, Apple and Google—can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.

Great opportunities for self-published authors!

California Libraries Make Deal with Smashwords

Califa, California’s largest library network, is about to strike an ebook deal with self-publishing site Smashwords, Library Journal reports. The partnership would bring about 10,000 self-published ebooks into Califa’s 220 libraries.

Califa would “purchase about 10,000 of the company’s top titles for about $3 a title.” Some of the titles could cost less, though: Smashwords CEO Mark Coker recently told me that the company will soon allow its authors to set their own ebook prices, and said “a lot of them are going to want to offer libraries lower pricing…or will want to offer their books for free to libraries.”

But unfortunately . . .

People Overlook EBooks in Libraries

Some 62% of respondents to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project’s latest library survey said they didn’t know if their library offered e-book lending. In reality, three-quarters of public libraries in the U.S. offer this service. The problem is, not enough people are taking advantage of it, or even know about it.
In fact, only 12% of Americans over the age of 16 who read e-books say they’ve borrowed one from the library in the past year.
. . . Pew found 52% of e-book borrowers reported at one point or another they encountered a waiting list to borrow an e-book. We think digital, 25 people can read it at once, but that’s not the case at all. Mitgang says you need to “think of digital books as a physical book, you can only lend it to one person at a time.”

Classics Illustrated Comics Coming to EBooks

I remember these literary comic books from my childhood in the sixties! The illustrations were awesome and really piqued my imagination. The covers above and below were two that my brothers had around the house, and I am so glad this series is being recovered and introduced to a new generation.

From Publisher's Weekly

Trajectory Inc., a Boston-based e-book and app developer and publisher, has acquired the digital rights to the original Classics Illustrated comics and will release the works as downloadable digital comics for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The digital series includes over 123 titles selling for $4.99 each from the original comic book series and features such classic works as Snow White, Treasure Island, the Tree Musketeers, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Gulliver’s Travels and many others.

The original Classics Illustrated comics series began publishing in 1941 and was created by Albert Kanter. The series featureds extremely abridged versions of classic works of literature with the original comic books varying from 64 pages to about 48 in later years. Kanter originally hoped the popularity of comics books—the comic book format we know today had essentially just been invented—would introduce young people to high literature and quality reading...

In a phone interview, Scott Beatty, publisher of Trajectory Inc. said that he was a fan of the original Classic Illustrated comics and remembers, “my dad had a box of Classic Illustrated comics that I found and I wondered if anyone was doing digital versions.” Beatty acquired the digital rights from First Classic Comics, the entity that owns the rights to the series, and said he had to “track them down, but they were happy to license the rights.”