Top 10: Book Reading Devices and Gadgets

2024. Kindle allows to read books on Peloton bikes



Amazon has partnered with Peloton to allow users read books while exercising on home-bikes and treadmills. To access the Kindle library you need to log into Amazon account directly on the bike screen and navigate to the Entertainment tab at the bottom. The integration provides a rather weird reading experience. You can turn pages with a tap, adjust font size, quickly navigate between chapters create bookmarks to continue reading from where you left off and turn on full-screen display. This new Kindle feature is currently available exclusively in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom.


2023. Dark Mode is now available on new Pocketbook e-readers



In a turn of events that could only be described as "entirely sensible, though slightly mysterious," the latest 6.8 firmware update has gently arrived to grace the Pocketbook Era, Pocketbook InkPad 4, and Pocketbook InkPad Color 2 with Dark Mode—a feature that, like any good technology, has been urgently desired yet wholly unanticipated by anyone not prone to reading device firmware updates for sport. Alongside Dark Mode, which cunningly flips your display into white-on-black to save you from squinting like a mole at midnight, the update introduces a host of suspiciously useful features, including an option-laden control panel, adventurous new filter choices in the Notes app, a rather opinionated text suggestion feature, and much more that can’t be fully described in a single paragraph without bending space-time. But fear not, for these delights will soon make their way to other Pocketbook models, spreading their magic across the Pocketbook universe. And if you’re reading in the murky shadows of night, you can even invert your book’s illustrations to align with Dark Mode’s gently sinister aesthetic, reducing contrast with the ambient darkness and making it look as though the universe cares deeply about your ocular well-being.

2023. Vivlio has acquired French ereader maker Bookeen



Bookeen, a French company that has been manufacturing e-readers since 2003 and primarily focused on the French market, has been acquired by Vivlio, the French equivalent of Kindle. Vivlio offers reading applications and an extensive e-library. In 2019, Vivlio introduced its own line of e-readers and launched a digital bookstore featuring over one million titles, with a strong emphasis on French content. This acquisition brings together the complementary activities of Bookeen and Vivlio, promising numerous synergies. It enables Vivlio to incorporate new talents and benefit from Bookeen's unique expertise in e-reader design within France. Moreover, Vivlio intends to continue Bookeen's operations for the benefit of readers. Consequently, Bookeen's social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, have been rebranded as Bookeen by Vivlio. However, for Bookeen users, there will be no changes. All active Bookeen e-readers, including the Notéa digital notepad, will retain their full functionality and the Bookeen Bookstore will continue to operate normally. Customers who have purchased ebooks will keep their digital libraries intact.


2023. Apple to bring books to virtual reality



According to Bloomberg’s tech oracle, Mark Gurman, whose uncanny knack for predicting Apple’s every twitch and sneeze has become the stuff of Silicon Valley folklore, Apple is apparently cooking up a version of Apple Books designed for their impending Apple VR headset. Yes, that’s right—a headset so advanced you could read War and Peace in virtual reality while pretending to sit in Tolstoy’s study. Seamlessly tying itself to the Apple ecosystem (because of course it does), the device will allegedly buddy up with your iPhones and iPads, making the leap between realities as smooth as swiping a screen. Naturally, Apple, in its usual cloak-and-dagger fashion, hasn’t said a peep about these leaks, so don’t go reserving your virtual bookshelf just yet. And in true Apple style, even if Gurman’s tidbits are spot-on, some features might vanish into the ether, possibly taking the scenic route to existence—if they ever materialize at all.