Telecom Italia aims up to 40% of Italy eBook market
Telecom Italia SpA, Italy’s largest telecoms operator believes eBooks will take off in Italy among young readers, and is targeting up to 40% of the country’s digital book market as it prepares for the launch of its new tablet by February.
According to Cesare Sironi, Head of Telecom Italia’s strategy and innovation, the Italian eBook market is at its very early stages, but they consider it a potentially booming one, as it was for mobile phones and social networks. The digital sector represents just 0.03% of the Italian book market, which is worth about US$4.47 billion.
He added, but it has a good chance of growing to 8% of the whole market, as already happened in the United States, in a period of three to four years. Telecom Italia aims to conquer 30% to 40% of this blooming market. Statistics show that teenagers between 11 and 19 years old are the people who read more, and also the ones more open to technological innovation.
Telecom Italia is targeting this young demographic with its own digital platform and different products, as it seals content partnerships with Italy’s largest publishers such as RCS Mediagroup and Mondadori.
Java Leads the path for Mobile eBook Downloads
Wattpad, the ebook community has unveiled its Q3 2009 Global Ebook Metrics Report which covers both country and handset/manufacturer data based on ebook usage of subscribers of over 600 mobile operators in 160 countries.
Te report has found out that Wattpad continues to be the world’s most downloaded mobile ebook application with over 4 million downloads.
Barnes & Noble to launch iPad app
In a recent development Barnes & Noble, the largest book retailer in the United States confirmed that the firm will soon be adding an eReader application for Apple’s iPad to its book sales strategy.
The move will be a part of the company’s ongoing strategy to provide customers with a book at any time of the day and anywhere.
The application will be released around the time of iPad’s expected availability and will soon join the company’s growing list of free eReader software for most computing and mobile devices including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and Blackberry.
According to the Director of corporate communications at Barnes & Noble, New York, Carolyn J Brown, the company strives to deliver consumers any book, anytime, anywhere, so they will continue to expand their eReader offering to help consumers enjoy their content across a multitude of devices.
The application is specifically designed for iPad and is bound to provide its customers access to more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers. This application will enable its users to snap a picture of a book and receive information right on their phones
Though Apple stated taking orders for iPad on March 12, the device won’t be available in the stores before April.
HTC introduces two new Android smartphones
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An enhanced HTC Sense user interface has been launched by the company, available on two new Android based smartphones, the HTC Legend and HTC Desire. HTC Friend Stream, that seamlessly aggregates all of the users social communication including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr into one organized flow of updates are included in the new platform.
According to Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC Corporation, HTC Legend and HTC Desire take Android to another level in both substance with HTC Sense and style with HTC Legend’s revolutionary crafted aluminum uni-body design.
Broad improvements to applications including the browser, email client and others are also introduced in the new HTC Sense experience.
Vodafone introduces ultra low cost handsets
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: To enable millions of people in the developing world to experience the connectivity a mobile phone can offer, two new ultra low cost handsets has been launched by Vodafone.
Vodafone 150 and the Vodafone 250 offer voice and SMS services, polyphonic ringtones, 2 integrated games, a vibrating alert, memory for up to 100 phonebook entries, a 500mAh battery (up to 400 hours standby and up to 5 hours talk time) and it will operate on GSM 900/1800.
The handsets will be launched in India, Turkey, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Qatar, South Africa and Tanzania at a price of US$15 and US$20 respectively.
According to Patrick Chomet, Vodafone’s Group Director of Terminals, the cost of mobile handsets can be one of the most significant barriers for people in accessing and benefiting from the growing number of socially valuable mobile services.
Sprint & GetJar offer 60,000+ free apps
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Independent app store’s 60,000-plus free applications will be offered under the new partnership between Sprint and GetJar to all feature phone subscribers as well as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile smartphone users. A link to the GetJar catalog is now live on the Sprint portal across most of its handsets.
Facebook Mobile, Google Maps, YouTube, Weather Channel Mobile, ShopSavvy and Loopt are some of the popular applications offered by GetJar. 750 million GetJar apps have already been downloaded by the consumers worldwide.
According to Sprint director of product management and development Kevin McGinnis, the company has been fairly open about its views on storefronts and they want to provide the greatest amount of choice and support operating systems, as opposed to their own proprietary storefront.
Telstra launches business laptops with Acer
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Acer Computer and Telstra Business joins hand to to release three ready-to-go business laptops and data plan bundles with built-in wireless mobile broadband connectivity. These bundles will make it easier for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to join the remote workforce revolution, thus providing better services and products to small business.
According to Telstra Business Group Managing Director Deena Shiff, 2010 Back to Business SME survey1 found that not only was the availability of finance a serious concern for about 70 percent of those polled, but investing in technology, including wireless broadband, featured in the growth plans of one in four.
Charles Chung, Acer computer regional Managing Director feels that expansion of 3G embedded notebooks, with their eight hour battery life, onto the Telstra Next GTM network for business customers means all-day, on-the-go computing is now in the reach of more SMEs.
USB sharing of Stanza ebook app halted by Apple
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: USB book sharing has been stripped of from version 2.1 of Lexcycle’s Stanza app for the iPhone at the request of computing giant Apple.
Ereader applications developer Lexcycle’s previous versions of Stanza, offering complete novels available either under public domain or via Creative Commons licenses as well as content from popular magazines, enabled users to transfer content from their Apple device to their computer.
According to Stanza’s App Store page, the new edition removed the ability to share books via USB as required by Apple and blocked from discussing its conversations with Apple. Apple’s decision to block Stanza’s USB sharing has been speculated a shot at online retail giant Amazon.com, which acquired Lexcycle in the spring of 2009.
