E-book subscription service Oyster closing shop, team heading to Google

Oyster - a company that offers Netflix-like subscription service for e-books- is shutting down. The start-up, which was founded a couple of years ago, said that the process will complete "over the next several months."
"We believe more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade—enabling access to knowledge and stories for billions of people worldwide," the company said in a blog post. "Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for ebooks."
Users will receive an email regarding their account in the next few weeks, Oyster said, adding that those looking for a refund can contact the company at refunds@oysterbooks.com.
Meanwhile, Google has confirmed that a number of Oyster employees, including CEO Eric Stromberg and co-founders Andrew Brown and Willem Van Lancker, have joined the company, and will now be a part of its Google Play Books team.
Source | Via

Comments

Post a Comment

Kindly Comment Only related to Post

Popular posts from this blog

Samsung Exynos 8870 chip surfaces

Image
Samsung is working on releasing an Exynos 8870 chipset, which is going to be less powerful than its top-of-the-line Exynos 8890. The Exynos 8870 will be made specifically for Samsung's external clients like Meizu. In fact, rumor has it the Meizu Pro 6 might use the chipset when it gets to market some time next year. Expected performance of the new chipset is along the lines of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, so we'd imagine it's not slow by any means. Details on the architecture of the chipset are nonexistent at the moment. We suspect more information will become available as Samsung starts testing the Exynos 8870 and it pops up in some benchmarks' database. Meanwhile MyDrivers.com compiled a nice chart comparing the major flagship chipsets for the start of 2016. The graph shows the performance of the Samsung Exynos 8890, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, Kirin 950, Helio X20 and Apple A9 as benchmarked by GFXBench for GPU performance and Geekbench 3 for C...
Read more

Allwinner announces its first 64-bit chipset

Image
Allwinner announced that it will be launching its first 64-bit chipset by the end of the year. A 64-bit version of Android is ready and will be shown running on the Juno development platform at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair in October. Details on the chipset are unclear at the moment, other than it will be based on ARMv8-A cores, so Cortex-A53, Cortex-A57 or perhaps both. Allwinner already has a big.LITTLE configuration with its octa-core UltraOcta A80 chipset. Anyway, the new chipset will support playback of 4K video encoded with H.265. Allwinner targets tablets and this new chipset will be no exception (they lack modems). Allwinner may not be a well-known brand in the west, but its chipsets powered most Android tablets shipped in 2012 and 2013 as Allwinner was the vendor of choice for white box manufacturers. A strong push in China from both Intel and MediaTek threatened its position in 2014. MediaTek already has a couple of 64-bit chipset – with LTE and in ...
Read more

Sharp 304SH comes with 5.2" 1080p screen, ultra slim bezels

Image
Sharp has announced the AQUOS Xx 304SH destined to arrive on carrier SoftBank Mobile in Japan. The phone features a 5.2" 1080p display in a very compact body resulting in a screen-to-body ratio of 79% ( take that, LG ). The AQUOS Xx 304SH sports a metal-frame body with dimensions of 135x72x9mm and weighs just 137 grams. Inside it, there's a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset (MSM8974AB) with a 2.3GHz quad-core Krait 400 CPU, an Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Internal storage is 32GB, but there's a microSD card slot that can accommodate up to 128GB of additional storage. On top of that, the phone is dust and waterproof (IPX5/IPX7) and sports Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and an infrared connectivity. At the back of the Sharp AQUOS 304SH, there's a 13MP camera with LED flash, while the front-facing one is a 2.1MP. The battery is 2,600mAh, but Sharp doesn't specify how long it can last between charges. The phone will go on sale later in M...
Read more

Samsung Galaxy S8 duo smashes pre-order records in Korea

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smashed pre-order records in its home country - more than 550,000 units were booked in two days. That’s more than 5 times the S7 pre-orders (around 100,000) and nearly triple what the Galaxy Note7 got (200,000, a record in itself). Pre-orders will last until April 17 (by then the number may reach a cool million) and there are a whopping 3,000 stores across the country carrying the S8. Samsung sweetened the pot by offering a free Bluetooth speaker or a KRW 400,000 gift card. An official from a local store reports that 80%-90% of visitors were there to pre-order the new Galaxy flagship. Surprisingly, the ratio of Galaxy S8 and S8+ orders seems even - usually, the smaller unit gets more attention. Still, there’s pent-up demand for a large-screen device since the Note7 went off the market. The 6GB/128GB version is also enjoying high demand, says a Samsung official. # of pre-orders in 2 days Higher is better Sort by L...
Read more

Made for Bond' promo short flaunts Xperia Z5, Sony RX100 IV

Sony Pictures Entertainment present's Naomie Harris as Moneypenny in the "Made for Bond" promotional campaign that features the Sony RX100 IV camera and Bond's own Sony Xperia Z5 smartphone. Excuse me while keyboard chokes on some ™ signs. Anyway, the 60-second clip promotes both Sony's new film and its new gadgets ahead of the launch of the new Bond film, Spectre. The promo was directed by Danny Kleinman – the man behind the titles in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and others leading up to Skyfall (skipping QoS ). The video was shot on a Sony F65 professional 4K cinema camera, naturally. "The campaign film truly captures the excitement of the chase, being on a mission and taking the viewer on the journey, all set against an iconic London backdrop," says Kleinman. "London provides the perfect setting for the campaign film. Ultimately, at the centre of Bond is Britishness, so it was really important that the ad was shot here. It is not you...
Read more

One M10's camera will be "very, very compelling," says HTC

Image
Looks like HTC is very bullish on the camera of its next flagship smartphone - most likely to be called the One M10. The Taiwanese company has said that the device will offer "a very, very compelling camera experience." "We can confidently say that HTC will have a very, very compelling camera experience," Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang said in an interview at MWC 2016. "We're making this comment after we've seen what's going on in the market -" he was, obviously, referring to Samsung's and LG's latest offerings. The One M10 is rumored to feature a 12MP UltraPixel rear camera with phase detection and laser autofocus as well as optical image stabilization, and a 5MP UltraPixel front shooter. In case you aren't already aware, an UltraPixel camera has bigger pixels, which let in more light to provide comparatively higher quality imaging experience even in low-light. Via
Read more