Can Augmented Reality Help Save the Print Publishing Industry?

Read Write Web: "There's a memorable scene in the movie Minority Report where a man reads a futuristic newspaper with rich embedded multimedia updating live with breaking news. While we are a long way seeing anything like this in the hands of the general public, a German newspaper has taken a small step in that direction with the release of a special augmented reality (AR) edition of its Friday magazine. ..."

Books in the Age of the iPad — Craig Mod

An important and artfully-crafted meditation by Craig Mod: "I want to look at where printed books stand in respect to digital publishing, why we historically haven't read long-form text on screens and how the iPad is wedging itself in the middle of everything. In doing so I think we can find the line in the sand to define when content should be printed or digitized. This is a conversation for books-makers, web-heads, content-creators, authors and designers. For people who love beautifully made things. And for the storytellers who are willing to take risks and want to consider the most appropriate shape and media for their yarns."

Sharp Will Launch XMDF E-book Reader Later This Year

PCWorld:

Japan's Sharp plans to enter the increasingly competitive e-book reader market later this year with a device that can read a new e-publishing file format of its own, it said Tuesday.

The company will launch an e-book reader in Japan before the end of the year and is also working towards a launch outside of Japan. The device, which has not yet been detailed by the company, is likely to hit the U.S. after Japan and Sharp said it is already in launch talks with Verizon Wireless. ...

Sharp's e-book readers will read files in a new version of XMDF (ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format), a format developed by Sharp and used in some of its previous devices.

The new version adds support for multimedia data and will allow audio and video to be embedded into e-book pages.

The original version of XMDF was accepted into the international standard for e-publishing (IEC62448), although its use remains largely confined to Japan. ...

Sharp said it has yet to decide if its reader will support other formats in addition to XMDF. ...

And Now, iBooks Audio and Video Support

From Mac Observer:

Along with iTunes 9.2.1, Apple released iBooks 1.1.1 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch late on Monday. The update for Apple’s ebook reader app added support for ebooks that include audio and video content.

Version 1.1.1 also added the ability to double-tap images to zoom in, improved performance when reading PDF documents, added the ability to look up English word definitions in books that don’t include a specified language, and improved overall stability and performance.

Quark's New Digital Publishing 2.0 Ideal for Color/Interactive Content

From eBooknewser's Diana Dilworth:

Quark has a new digital publishing platform out today called Quark Digital Publishing 2.0. The company unveiled the platform at The Big Money's Untethered conference--partnering with K-NFB Reading Technology, creator of the Blio e-reader application and distributor Baker & Taylor. The three companies are collaborating to offer Digital Publishing 2.0.

Taking advantage of the popularity of color screens on iPads and other tablets, Quark's new platform allows publishers to publish in color and create interactive design-heavy content. Designers don't have to know how to program code, they just have to input their designs into the platform to create interactive content.

QuarkXPress's built-in interactive features include the ability to add slide shows, embed video and create other interactive elements. The published content can be formatted for viewing on various devices. ...