Sunday, February 21, 2010  
Tablets : IPad comic readers.

:: Posted by max @ 2/21/2010 09:45:00 PM

Caught mention of one of the platforms that will be among the first to be available to Iphone and Ipad users, called panelfly. They got perked by the lovely Cali Lewis [see the embedded clip, 2:50 to 3:40], and seem to be playing the hot girl factor in general. Clever. The My fly section is not up yet but not bad so far. I hear we can expect some big news From LongBox this month, wich i'm eager to check out. Nothing specific from them but it seems like it's possbile they will have an Apple app too.

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   Thursday, January 28, 2010  
A round up of other Tablets/Slates

:: Posted by max @ 1/28/2010 03:57:00 AM
Updated 1/28/2010 2:05pm To round out our Tablet coverage, thought i'd post a list of some of the other players that the IPad will be running up against this year. All will likely make good digital comics platforms, so worth keeping an eye on.

First up, it looks like an Ipad, and has the name a lot of people we're expecting, it's the HP Slate. First seen at CES 2010, HP posted this teaser just the other day no doubt to steal a little thunder from Jobs. Not sure about this factoid but given that it's a windows 7 device it might be able to support a pressure sensitive styluses [digitizer] as well as multi touch like some other penabled tablet pc's. So that may be of interest to a lot of creators like myself too, as a comics making platform, as well as reading.

We'll see about that, sadly the current line of HP's Touchsmart machines have lost some of their appeal with the latest round of models due to a switch from Wacom tech to N-Trig, the pressure sensitivity of which does not work with most major programs artists use.

Manga studio 4 might work from what i've read, and some consumer level & platform specific programs, but nothing by Adobe seems to. A lack of drivers appears to the problem. So far Modbooks, HP's older tx2500z's, an obscure list of other older tablet PC's and the mighty Cintiq have been the only devices to offer that kink using Wacom tech. The N-Trig problem is a know issue so it's a strange move for HP to switch to it. Perhaps more of a Wacom decision? In anycase we don't have a lot of details about the Slate yet so it's all speculation.



Previously called the Crunch pad, this device was conceived by Michael Arrington, but has been poched by a Singapore based design studio Fusion Garage he brought on board to build it, and renamed JooJoo. This device started a lot of the Tablet buzz for hard core geeks, and does look promising but has some negative karma to deal with and a bit of a yellow tint to the screen.



One of the first second gen E-Readers that was anounced over a year ago was the Plastic Logic's Que E-book Reader. It's a simple low power B&W reader with lots of functionality.



Lenovo's "Ideapad" is a hybrit Tablet/Net book with some sexy tricks, and will probably give the IPad and HP Slate a serious run at about $500 when it comes out.



And to cover the basses, they also have another hybrid model, The U1, in the works for later in the year with a detachable tablet screen...



There's the slightly redundant looking but maybe cool double screen Ereader/Netbook called the enTourage eDGe running android. At $490 it's a contender.



There are more, models from Dell and others are also in the works or being sneak peeked, but so far these are the ones with delivery dates. But this isn't really a tech blog after all so we'll leave it at that for the gear.

Suffice to say, with all this coming out it does seem that self publishing, digital comics, and the print world will have a lot of new ways to distribute thier wares.

In a day or so i'll post a round up of some of the secure and open digital comics distribution software platforms that have been brewing too. A few names to google are Longbox, ComicBookLover, Marvel Digital Comics, Graphic.ly, and the low rent favorite CDisplay.

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   Wednesday, January 27, 2010  
IPad buzz and live feeds

:: Posted by max @ 1/27/2010 02:13:00 PM
Updated: 5:20pm: So unless you're living in a cave, you will have heard by now that tablet computers are/maybe/aren't the great hope to save the publishing world.

As in most things digital now, everyone has been waiting for Apple to put it's weight behind the category. Well first off most missed the mark on the branding, the name is IPad. And so far from the bits and bites you can glean live online from engadget and elsewhere, it looks promising. Not so much a game changer i think as clear progress in the ongoing evolution of digital media.

Especially the entry price point which will make it possible for most people to get into the game - $499 for a 16gig wifi model! [see here for the different configurations and prices]

The thing itself is not quite as slick looking at first blush as some of the speculative images that have been posted over the last few months. But i think it's probably more practical, with a wide boarder on all sides and no buttons to accidentally press while reading. Bellow I've posted a couple of video clips, and at this time the engadget blog is still was posting live photos and bits of text from the presentation in Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.

The name is getting a bit of flack for being tauntable in a school yard context. ISlate or ITablet might have been more macho, but I do think this might just be the player people have been hoping for in the print world. It's much more powerful than most of the other low end tablets and e-books out there that it's entry price let's it compete with, and comics are going to look really good on that color screen, much better than a kindle or other e-readers.

With a large keyboard and access to google docs it will make a viable alternative to netbooks for many users, and with 3G options it can play the roll of phone for some. The only thing i think is missing that keeps it from being an all in 1 is a built in camera, and no Adobe Flash! ouch. That makes Marvel cautious about the device, but even so the niche's this thing can play in are pretty wide ranging. Anyone feeling like being my sugersomone should be made aware that i'd love a wifi model myself. :)

Comics news site Newsarama has an extensive posting here too.

Parts of Steve's presentation in San Francisco




Apple's slick product ad


First hands on clip from engadget

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