Sunday, January 6, 2013

The EPUB3 Challenge


The year of 2011 was considered to be a major breakthrough  in the eBook industry with the IDPF announcement of the new EPUB3 standard. even today, most of the readers support simple literary books with no capabilities for extra features and no response to a variety of needs of eBooks publishers  such as all Multimedia, interactivity, animation etc. This is needed for text books, educational books, academic materials and many scientific books. Dictionaries, and all sorts of guides such as tourist guides, etc.
In 2012 Helicon Books had launched the first EPUB3 reader for the Andorid operating system- the Helicon Books Gyan Reader. The reader has opened a new era in the digital books industry and attracts all types of text books publishers , educational books publishers, and more.

EPUB3 Media Revolution  

While most EPUB2 eBooks presented images , interactive features and capabilities emerged later in EPUB3. Readers in the new standard support videos, interactive images, and another interesting option - Media Overlay- a method to synchronize audio and text. a combination of sentences marking and audio that read them (dubbed speak aloud by Apple). Now- imagine a children's eBook with all these options. The reader's functions become similar to a computer connected to the Internet but the major advantage is that here you don't have to be connected. That means that eBooks written in EPUB3 standard can turn the book into an interactive game where people who read the book feel like taking part in a quest, a show, a game, or a reality situation.
Tourist guides in EPUB3 can present the traveler his quest in real time, show him interactive images of the places he should visit including videos. Children's education books can present interactive simulations, videos, and the option of Media Overlay for pupils who have reading disabilities. Think about all the options that make educational books much more interesting for learning.

EPUB3 Obstacles

Although EPUB3 opens the door for more interesting features and presentation developments, there are serious questions according to its necessity. As it was mentioned before, if EPUB3 turns the eBook into an Internet site- why shouldn't we use the computer instead?
There are some answers for that. First many readers read their eBooks during traveling in places where they don't have Internet options. Digital readers users can use their eBook on their way. It is a major advantage for travel book readers- but for others as well. Second, costs. Internet use might be high in some countries and even higher if you travel abroad. Third- support. Suppose an entire class wish to use  a site at the same time- the band width may not be enough to support all of them. An EPUB3 reader is an answer in such case and other cases that demands a group to use the same material at the same time.
Another advantage is sustainability, that you do not depend on a web server, you own the book.

EPUB3 Around The World

EPUB3 had opened the doors for other languages, not only western languages.
The new standard supports top to bottom languages such as Chinese and Japanese, and also supports complex text layout languages as well (for example Hebrew and Arabic). Such a development expose the entire digital publishing industry to a wider audience around the world.

There is a hope that such improvements will expose the digital book industry  audience to a new content and that more people around the world will use this wonderful device which turned a simple book from a book into an interactive way of learning.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The first EPUB3 reader for Android


Helicon Books Gyan Reader- The first EPUB3 reader for Android


People today expect more and more Multimedia in the Internet and in Digital books.
In 2011 the IDPF has announced the EPUB3 standard.
Right now most of the readers support the EPUB2 standard, and some of them added extensions to support part of the new capabilities of the EPUB3.
In September 12 Helicon Books has launched the first EPUB3 reader for Android- The Helicon Books Gyan Reader. This revolutionary step in the ebooks industry has opened a door not just for interactivity in the ebook industry but also for the high level education, science, and math books by adding capabilities of  showing mathematical formulas with the MathML.
The new EPUB3 reader of Helicon Books is also an answer for people with disabilities. The new feature of Media Overlay supports audio and light the phrases and words which are pronounced.

The new features of the reader


  • Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG) - a vectorized graphic format that enables resizing of images without loss of quality
  • Interactive SVG - Similar to SVG but interactive that enables the user to click part of the image and see it moves or zoom
  • MathML - A markup language (based on XML) for rendering mathematical formulas
  • JavaScript - A programming language that enables developers add interactivity to websites or digital book pages
  • Support for Complex text layout languages - Language such as Hebrew or Arabic that are written from right to left. (the previous standard had partial support for these languages, the new standard fully support these languages including page progression direction)
  • Support for top to bottom languages - Languages such as Chinese or Japanese written from top to bottom are now fully supported
  • Fixed layout pages (mainly for children books and/or comic books)
  • Media Overlay (speak aloud as it is called by Apple) - A features adding a layer of audio on top of text or images, that the reader hightlights the words (or images) the audio is talking about, uses a special markup language (SMIL)
  • Support for video inside pages


Helicon books reader supports all the above features and more. It also supports more advanced features such as interactive 3D images that can be rotated in order to view the object from different directions.
The reader currently support Android platform only but will soon support also iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod etc.)
The reader is available for white labels licensing and customer specific customization.
You can purchase it from Google Play at http://tinyurl.com/d6bkwob .
For more information see: www.heliconbooks.com