Azure GPT-3 on Onyx Boox devices was silently replaced by a Chinese large language model by Bytedance, the company behind TikTok. It's not a big surprise because Onyx International is also Chinese company. But this new AI assistant is propaganda-based. It refuses to mention anything remotely negative about China (or it's allies, like Russia, the Assad regime and North-Korea). But is happy to do so about any other country on earth. The LLM in question is Doubao, which is offered as an API under ByteDance’s cloud services division Volcano Engine. But the model is only meant to be used within China’s mainland. Boox launched the AI assistant feature last summer. It's available in the Naviball and Control Center, ready to answer any of your questions.

Crunchyroll Manga has revamped its reading app. It will be accessible later this year as an independent app on iOS and Android, launching in Canada and the United States. The app enhances Crunchyroll subscriptions and will be available as a premium upgrade. Web browser support is also anticipated for the future. The original Crunchyroll Manga app had existed since 2013 but was discontinued in late 2023. Before that, the app had not been refreshed in years. They also removed all of the digital manga from their platform and it seemed, at the time, that they were stepping away from manga and centering their brand on streaming anime. Prominent publishers will contribute to the new app in the manga market, but the company has not disclosed exactly who will supply its new digital manga collection. Since they predominantly focus on English titles, it will likely originate from Viz Media, Kodansha USA, Seven Seas and possibly Dark Horse.

Smashing, a new application curating the finest of the web from Goodreads co-founder Otis Chandler, is now accessible to the public. Like Goodreads, the app aims to build a community around content. But this time, instead of books, the emphasis is on web content — such as news articles, blog posts, social media updates, podcasts and more. Additionally, Smashing is unveiling an AI Questions feature that enables you to interact with the content being shared in various ways, including by viewing a news story from alternate perspectives or asking the AI to critique the story, among other things. By exploring different facets of a story, you can see how both the political left and right perceive the topic. Or, in the case of a company’s stock, you might be shown both the optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints.

OverDrive has recently announced the introduction of its inaugural publishing company and first series. Rooted in OverDrive’s Cleveland base, Heights Press embodies the company’s profound mission to assist schools and libraries in fostering literacy and a passion for reading. Heights Press premieres with “Hickory Hollow,” a six-book collection for middle-grade readers and a lineup of video shorts. The initial titles are now accessible exclusively for public libraries and schools globally for readers utilizing the Libby, Sora and Kanopy Kids apps and platforms. Each book in “Hickory Hollow” will be initially offered in e-book format in five languages—English, Chinese, German, Vietnamese and Korean—ensuring extensive reach and enhanced accessibility. The first title is provided at no charge to all OverDrive schools and libraries as part of the “Everyone Reads: Kids and Teens Collection” for readers on Libby and Sora, while the remaining books are available for purchase in the OverDrive Marketplace.

PodToo, a platforms for hosting and distributing audio content, has entered into a collaboration with Kobo Books. As part of the agreement, audiobook publishers associated with PodToo will now be able to showcase their audiobooks on Kobo Books. This will benefit both parties, as audiobook publishers with PodToo will gain access to a fresh market segment comprising the Kobo userbase worldwide. PodToo also announced it had introduced the new groundbreaking SecureRSS technology, which will allow audiobooks to be sold directly through Podcast 2.0 players. Buyers will be able to access or even acquire audiobooks using conventional payments (FIAT) or Bitcoin (Sats). This is going to be achievable only with those platforms that have embraced the SecureRSS technology. This will provide buyers with a smooth listening experience while creators will be able to monetize their content efficiently, all thanks to the SecureRSS innovation.

Onyx Boox has introduced the new Note Air4 C E Ink tablet, which has several improvements over its predecessor. It has the same 10.3-inch display (2480 x 1860) with a Kaleido 3 panel for color effect. The accompanying stylus, which Onyx refers to as the Pen Plus, offers a natural paper-like writing feel as it supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. Thanks to the new high-powered processor, Boox is claiming an outright 50 percent improvement in performance. It runs the more recent Android 13 that allows better organization of notes with the help of folders and tags. The new Outline feature lets you outline your notes in a clear structure. The Link tool connects all your notes, other documents and online information to be more accessible when needed. The device has 3,700 mAh battery which should last a week or so. The price is $500.

Amazon has released a software update 5.17.2 for the first Kindle Scribe that introduces the new software features they’re promoting for the Scribe 2. It includes the capability to write notes directly on ebooks. You can write notes anywhere on the page and it will automatically reformat the page to wrap the text around your handwritten annotations. The sticky note option is still present as well to place handwritten notes outside of the page. If you don’t want to write directly over the text, you can also use the writing toolbar to add a blank section of space, which Amazon calls Canvas, to the page for writing notes between lines of text. They also made it possible to transform freehand highlights into neat, straightened highlights and you can now use underlines instead of highlights if that’s your preference. New enhancements were also added to the Notebook app, including an AI feature that can summarize your notes and help refine your writing.

DVDFab has released the BookFab AudioBook Creator - Windows program for audiobook creators that costs $59.99. The AI-powered software quickly converts text to audio files using 20 different AI voices in English and Japanese. Creators can easily correct pronunciations of difficult words and customize the text reading rules. Abbreviations in the text can also have custom spoken output associated with them. The 20 voices can have their expressivity, prosody, silence gaps and speech speed tuned for the perfect vocal performance in English or Japanese. Human voice actors can be cloned in a future update of the software. The program also allows full customization of your audio with adjustable Prosody, Expressivity and Silence settings. You are in control of the speed, loudness, etc.

Amazon Bookstore is not good at recommending interesting books. So the company has recently unveiled a new Discover tab on Kindle Unlimited service. It lists a bunch of bestsellers that you might want to download. On the main Discover page are two abs: Genre and More. Genre lists the main categories that someone might want to explore, such as mystery, romance, memoir, fantasy and science fiction. Once you select a genre, it will display several popular books, but you can also further refine your search by choosing a sub-genre. This will only show books you would enjoy in various categories. Clicking on More will allow you to filter books by starred ratings, so if you click on five stars, it will only display books where most users have rated a particular book very highly. You can also sort by popularity, which is selected by default, but sorting alphabetically is also an option.

Amazon has discreetly unveiled new capabilities for Send to Kindle for Mac. This official software package enables Macintosh users to effortlessly send PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG, JPEG, BMP and EPUB files to the various Kindle 2024 models and the Kindle Scribe. There is additional functionality today, with a completely new update. It has just added support for USB file transfers and the required drivers. The USB Manager feature functions with Intel and Mac M1-M3 computers running MacOS 12. Amazon probably prepared this support documentation before the new M4 Mac Mini, iMac and other systems were revealed last week. I am confident the new Send to Kindle for Mac will accommodate M4; if you manage to get it to work, please share your thoughts below. So Mac users will no longer need to install unreliable third-party programs or drivers simply to use the USB feature to send digital content to the Kindle from a Mac system. It seems Amazon is finally providing Mac users with some focus.