ASCENT –Center for Technical Knowledge is now providing an unrivalled educational experience to self-paced or classroom learners. It is producing video enhanced eBooks by incorporating content provided by 4D Technologies (developers of the industry-leading CADLearning video library). Paul Burden, director of product development at ASCENT said, “CADLearning video lessons add a multimedia element to our eBook format that complements the existing content and gives users an additional perspective…Learners are now presented with content that enables them to read, watch, listen, and try, all from one resource.”  Read the full article from Business Wire here.

When a new e-reader is released people normally don’t upgrade to the latest and greatest every year. Certainly e-paper technology does not improve at the breakneck speed that smartphones and tablets do. e-Readers are one of those things that receive very small, incremental updates and often do not give users a compelling enough reason to upgrade. Good e-Reader Research conducted a poll and asked the question “how old is your e-reader?” Review the results and read the full article on Good e-Reader here.

A new agreement announced ahead of this year’s London Book Fair just made the world of international publishing a little bit smaller. eBook distributor and discoverability platform Trajectory has inked a deal with the third largest smartphone producer in the world, Xiaomi. This agreement will bring Macmillan, Gardner books, MIT Press and other publishers’ titles to this market. Trajectory will also bring its search tool to the Chinese reading market to aid in book discovery. “China is one of the most important publishing markets in the world…” said Scott Beatty, Trajectory’s Chief Content Officer.  Read the full story on Good E Reader here.

In 2013, Oyster launched one of the first eBook rental services, offering subscribers a subscription that covered all they could read for $10 a month. Now Oysters plans to expand in a surprising direction—eBook sales. They will offer virtually every available eBook from all the big publishers, including the latest best-sellers.  Read the full article from Yahoo! Finance here.

If the book is dead, nobody bothered to tell the folks at Capitol Hill Books in Washington, D.C. Books of every size, shape and genre occupy each square inch of the converted row house — including the bathroom — all arranged in an order discernible only to the mind of Jim Toole, the store's endearingly grouchy owner.  Read the full article from NPR here.