Launched by Apple in January 2007 in the United States, the iPhone is a
smartphone including an iPod (the iPod was launched in October 2001), a
camera, and a web browser, with the following specifications: large
tactile screen (3,5 inches), synchronization with the iTunes platform
to download music and videos, camera of 2 megapixels, Safari browser,
Mac OS X operating system, access to GSM (Global System for Mobile
Telecommunications) and EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution), WiFi,
and Bluetooth. The first iPhone was available for US$499 for the 4 G
version and $599 for the 8 G version in the U.S., and launched in
Europe in late 2007 and in Asia in 2008. Other models followed, the
latest one being the iPhone 4, launched in June 2010.
August 2007 > A quote by Denis Zwirn, president of the digital
bookstore Numilog
Denis Zwirn is the president of Numilog, the main French-language
digital bookstore. He wrote in August 2007: "The digital book is not
any more a topic for symposiums, conceptual definitions, or divination
by some 'experts'. It is a commercial product and a tool for reading.
There is no need to wait for some new hypermodern and hypertextual tool
carefully orchestrating its specificity from the print book. We need to
offer books that can be easily read on any ebook reader used by
customers, sooner or later with an electronic ink display. And to offer
them as an industry. The digital book is not - and will never be -- a
niche product (dictionaries, travel guides, books for the blind); it is
becoming a mass market product, with multiple forms, like the
traditional book." (NEF Interview)
November 2007 > The Kindle, an ebook reader launched by Amazon
In November 2007, Amazon.com launched its own ebook reader, the Kindle,
with a catalog of 80,000 ebooks - and new releases for US $9,99 each.
The built-in memory and 2G SD card gave plenty of book storage (1.4 G),
with a screen using the E Ink technology, and page-turning buttons.
Books were directly bought and downloaded via the device's 3G wireless
connection, with no need for a computer, unlike the Sony Reader.
580.000 Kindles were sold in 2008. A thinner and revamped Kindle 2 was
launched in February 2009, with a storage capacity of 1,500 ebooks, a
new text-to-speech feature, and a catalog of 230,000 ebooks on
Amazon.com's website, including the catalog of Mobipocket, a company
bought by Amazon in April 2005 and the catalog of Audible.com (audio
books and magazines), another company bought by Amazon in January 2009.
The Kindle DX was launched in May 2009 with a larger screen, more
suitable to read newspapers and magazines.
October 2008 > Google Books versus the associations of authors and
publishers
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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