The web browser on the Kindle may not be the slickest piece of software in the world, barely sufficing for checking email and basic surfing, but there's one thing it excels at: web-based text adventures. Turn on your wireless connection, peck out PortableQuest.com on those tiny little keys and prepare for a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. (You can play without a kindle as well.) [created by edman, via mefi projects]
posted by Vectorcon Systems on Oct 6, 2010 - 13 comments

calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Dec 12, 2009 - 28 comments

Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman, The New Master Of Evolution? Video Interview: Evolution Politics. A reformulation of the theory of evolution. Susan Mazur presents most of the players in her latest e-book: Will the Real Theory of Evolution Please Stand Up? [more inside]
posted by hortense on Sep 1, 2008 - 54 comments

Charlie Stross releases his new book Accelerando as a Creative Commons e-book, thereby buying in to the open source idea that offering up one's intellectual property (under certain circumstances) will result in greater sales of the physical object, not fewer (see: Cory Doctorow). In a time where promotional opportunities for new and "mid-list" authors seem to be continually shrinking, is offering up a complete work the current equivalent of the author interview or newspaper puff piece? Or is it simply a recognition that here in the 21st century anything can be pirated -- better to offer up your work in good will (and in a form where you have some control), and hope some of the kids will realize that behind the free content is a guy who needs to eat? And what happens if/when all books become digital books?
posted by jscalzi on Jun 16, 2005 - 24 comments

netLibrary. "We offer the only comprehensive approach to eBooks that integrates with the time-honored missions and methods of libraries and librarians." Want an account? If your library system is a participant, go to the site from on a library computer, create an account, and you can then log in remotely too. Interesting! [via soup du jour of the day.]
posted by mwhybark on Oct 6, 2004 - 12 comments

E-paper to make its consumer debut. A little Cambridge, MA firm called E-Ink is teaming up with 2 global partners (Philips and Sony) to introduce next month "the world's first consumer application of an electronic paper display module." The size of a paperback book, it will allow storage of the equivalent of 500 books, and display of up to 10,000 pages on a single set of batteries. The display technology comes closer to the appearance of a printed page than any previous electronic display. The future of this technology: "'expressive surfaces'-intelligent displays that are built right into everyday products." At the research level it is already capable of displaying color video.
posted by beagle on Mar 24, 2004 - 29 comments

Jim Munroe, author of Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask [free e-book here] and other books, is also the creator of No Media Kings, an anti-media monopoly site where you can learn to make your own books (why & how). Jim also makes movies/cdroms and recently co-created The Perpetual Roadshow [careful, sound].
posted by dobbs on Sep 23, 2003 - 3 comments

Something that may finally make e-books palatable is this new display technology that has an incredible resolution of 202 pixels per inch. Imagine a digital display with the same image resolution as a high quality printed magazine.
posted by grant on Nov 11, 1999 - 0 comments