HUAWEI Launches MatePad Paper E-ink Tablet on March 16

  

On March 16, HUAWEI has launched the MatePad Paper, a 10.3-inch tablet that relies on an E Ink display. However, HUAWEI MatePad Paper can do a lot more than contemporary eReaders, such as Kindle Paperwhite. Below are the 5 things to love MatePad Paper.

1. 10.3" Eye Comfort HUAWEI FullView Display4

According to HUAWEI, the MatePad Paper offers a 10.3" HUAWEI FullView display and an 86.3% high screen-to-body ratio. It means you can view PDF files on a large screen without having to frequently turn pages. The smart refresh rate adjusts according to the content you view, leading to a smooth and clear reading experience for both business reports and GIFs.

2. Efficient Writing and Recording

HUAWEI M-Pencil (2nd generation) magnetically attaches to the frame of HUAWEI MatePad Paper, ready and waiting whenever the mood to write strikes. The texturized surface of MatePad Paper and 26 ms low latency offers a superior writing experience. You can swipe down from the top right of the screen with the stylus to activate a split-screen, which means multiple screens for multiple tasks.

Besides handwriting, you can even make a mark on your recording while taking notes, then tap on the mark to play the exact audio clip. And your handwriting can be translated into text. 

3. A Multitude of Reading Content

HUAWEI MatePad Paper offers abundant high-quality reading content as houses as well as third-party reading resources. With dual speakers that optimize vocal clarity, listening to audiobooks is also available. 

4. HarmonyOS 2

The e-ink tablet boots HarmonyOS 2 bringing features such as the ability to easily establish a connection between the tablet and Huawei’s laptops, PCs, tablets, and phones. The connection takes the form of a USB drive but wirelessly, thanks to WiFi 6+ and Bluetooth 5.2 support onboard. Thus, you can easily share notes and PDFs between gadgets.

5. Powerful Chip & Large Memory

The combination of a powerful chip and 4 GB + 64 GB large storage provides faster downloading, smoother page-turning, and more than enough space for all your books, files, and notes.

Audie Awards Winners of 2022

The Audie Awards recognize distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment and are sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association. 2022 is the 27th year of the annual Audie Awards. On March 4, the winners were announced for the 27th annual Audie Awards. Winners are announced in 25 categories, including best male/female narrator, best Original Work, and best multi-voiced performance.

Here's a full list of winners.

Audiobook of the Year: Project Hail Mary, written by Andy Weir, narrated by Ray Porter

Audio Drama: Sherlock Holmes – The Seamstress of Peckham Rye, written by Jonathan Barnes

Performed by Nicholas Briggs, Richard Earl, Lucy Briggs-Owen, India Fisher, James Joyce, Anjella MacKintosh, Glen McCready, and Mark Elstob

Autobiography/Memoir: Somebody’s Daughter, written and narrated by Ashley C. Ford

Best Female Narrator: Deepti Gupta

The Parted Earth, written by Anjali Enjeti

Best Male Narrator: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, written by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Business/Personal Development: Machiavelli for Women, written and narrated by Stacey Vanek Smith

Español- Spanish Language: La casa de Bernarda Alba, written by Federico García Lorca

Narrated by Gloria Muñoz, Elena González, Rebeca Hernando, Carmen Mayordomo, Marta Poveda, Sol de la Barreda, Beatriz Melgares, Cristina Arias, and Antonio Martínez Asensio

Faith-Based Fiction nor Non-Fiction: 

The Gift of Black Folk, written by W.E.B. Du Bois, narrated by Arnell Powell

Fantasy: Rhythm of War, written by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading

Fiction: The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, written by Dawnie Walton

Narrated by Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, André De Shields, Dennis Boutsikaris, Steve West, Gabra Zackman, Robin Miles, and a full cast

History/Biography: Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other

Written and narrated by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish (with a foreword written and narrated by Diana Gabaldon)

Humor: How Y’all Doing?

Written and narrated by Leslie Jordan

Literary Fiction & Classics: All Creatures Great and Small

Written by James Herriot & Narrated by Nicholas Ralph

Middle Grade: Playing the Cards You’re Dealt, written by Varian Johnson

Narrated by Dion Graham

Multi-Voiced Performance: Heresy, written by Melissa Lenhardt

Narrated by Barrie Kreinik, Bailey Carr, Ella Turenne, Nikki Massoud, Natalie Naudus, Imani Jade Powers, and James Fouhey

Mystery: Later, written by Stephen King, narrated by Seth Numrich

Narration By the Author(s): A Promised Land, written and narrated by Barack Obama

Non-Fiction: The Joy of Sweat, written by Sarah Everts, narrated by Sophie Amoss

Original Work: Heroine, written and narrated by Mary Jane Wells

Romance: Reel: Hollywood Renaissance, Book 1, written by Kennedy Ryan 

Narrated by Eboni Flowers, Jakobi Diem, Nicole Small, and April Christina

Science Fiction: Project Hail Mary, written by Andy Weir, narrated by Ray Porter

Short Stories/Collections: Blackout

Written by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon

Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Dion Graham, Imani Parks, Jordan Cobb, Shayna Small, A.J. Beckles, and Bahni Turpin

Thriller/Suspense: Local Woman Missing, written by Mary Kubica

Narrated by Brittany Pressley, Jennifer Jill Araya, Gary Tiedemann, and Jesse Vilinsky Published by HarperAudio

Young Adult: Be Dazzled, written by Ryan La Sala, narrated by Pete Cross

Young Listeners: I and I Bob Marley, written by Tony Medina, narrated by Jaime Lincoln Smith

These incredible audiobooks are the best ones to get you started on your listening extravaganza. FYI, you can share your purchased audiobooks with your friends by converting them to MP3.

Kindle Firmware Update 5.14.2 Introduces New Home Screen!

Kindle Firmware version 5.14.2 is now available for all Kindle devices dating back to the 7th generation Kindle Paperwhite (PW3). Here's what's new:

Performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements.

Well, this new firmware also introduces a new UI and a different settings structure. Normally, you should get a new home screen after installing the new firmware and syncing and restarting your Kindle. However, this is not the case for most people. We guess Amazon might roll out this change gradually. So there are some people who have been successfully updated to the latest Kindle firmware and have the new home screen, which looks like this:

As you can see from the screenshot, it shows a scrollable list of recent books on the Home screen instead of just three.  Also, the cover thumbnails in the library list view are also present. And the progress bar in the list view is no longer the dots.

Kobo Firmware 4.31 Support Sideloaded Mode

According to Kobo official note about the new released Firmware 4.31,  Kobo has made the below changes in this firmware:

Increased Language Support

 • Added Catalan dictionary

 • You can now select Simplified Chinese in Settings > Language and dictionaries

 • Added Pinyin keyboard

 • Added English - Simplified Chinese dictionary

Book Covers on Sleep and Power Off-Screen

 • Book covers will now appear on the sleep screen for Fnac customers.

 • Tip: You can hide book covers or make them full screen in Settings > Energy saving and privacy.

However, besides these changes included in the Kobo official release note, there are also many new features added to the 4.31 firmware. Here is the detailed version of what’s new about the 4.31 firmware:

• Sideloaded mode

• Improvements in handwriting performance

• FNAC affiliate now has options for showing the cover

• Catalan dictionary added

• Simplified Chinese support:

    o Language in UI

    o Three new fonts any of the Chinese languages are selected (after syncing)

    o English - Simplified Chinese dictionary

    o Pinyin keyboard

• Fixes:

    o Crash when opening sideloaded epubs (Adobe OOM issues)

    o Move Notebook section from More view back to the tab widget on the home page when stylus is detected

    o Remove File Size limit when parsing text document. Previously text files over 2MB were ignored.

    o Syncing annotations across devices

    o Timezone database has been updated.

As you can see, one of the most useful features is that Kobo now adds Sideloaded mode. Once you are in sideloaded mode, it does not force you to sign in and can continue using the device, but, the sing in option is still there. This is definitely designed for users who cannot connect to a network during the setup. In a word, the device works without having to sign in.

Bonus Tips:

You can sideload DRM Free eBooks to Kobo here.

You can sideload DRM Free Audiobooks to Kobo here.

Audible Windows App Has Been Discontinued

On January 13, 2022, the Audible for Windows desktop app has been discontinued. Now it's currently not available in the Windows Microsoft store.

Here is a screenshot of the email message shared by a user:

According to the email sent from Audible,  users who already have the app installed on their PC can continue to use it until July 31st, 2022. But after that date, people won't be able to use the Audible Windows app to access the library.

And they encourage users to use their iOS or Android apps, the Audible Cloud player or the Echo devices to listen to the audiobooks. 

Audible Windows app has provided us a way to download Audible books as AAX format. But now it's discontinued. So the only way to download Audible books in AAX format is to download from the Audible official site www.audible.com. (According to some users, the download on the Italian Audible site has already been discontinued.)

In case Audible will discontinue the downloads from audible.com one day, it's high time that you should download and back up them to your computer.

Here is the detailed guide you can follow to download your Audible books from the Audible official site:

How to Download Audible Books to PC/Mac Computer

Fixed! Adobe Digital Editions Virtual Printing is Not Allowed

 - Can I print books from Adobe Digital Editions?

- Yes, you can. In Adobe Digital Editions, select File > Print or use the Ctrl+P (Windows) or Cmd+P (Mac) keyboard shortcuts.

However, you can only print books if the book publisher has not restricted the printing of the book. If the print option is restricted, the "Print" button will be greyed out. 

To check the book permissions, go to the Library, right-click the book, and select Item Info. Check that printing is enabled or not allowed in the permissions.

What to Do if Adobe Digital Editions Printing is Not Allowed?

Now the printing is not allowed, what can we do to make the printing available? As we said, the reason why printing is not allowed is that the publisher has made a restriction on the book. So the solution out there is to break the restrictions, more exactly, the DRM protection. Let's follow my steps to remove the DRM protection and print Adobe Digital Edtions books.

Step 1. Remove DRM from Adobe Digital Editions.

Download and install Epubor Ultimate. It's the best Adobe DRM removal & eBook converter for Adobe Digital Editions books. 

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

 

Run Epubor Ultimate. All your Adobe Digital Editions books are automatically detected and displayed under the "Adobe" tab. Now just drag and drop your books from the left side to the right column. You will find the books are automatically decrypted. It means the DRM is successfully removed. 

Then continue to click the button “Convert to PDF” if your original Adobe Digital Editions books are in epub format. Once the conversion is finished, just click the bottom-right folder icon to find your converted PDF Adobe Books.

Step 2. Print Adobe Digital Editions books.

Once you have got your Adobe Digital Editions DRM-free and in PDF format, all that's left to do is to print the PDF file. There are many PDF readers that support the print function. 

Here I just open the PDF file with Microsoft Edge browser on my Windows 10. If you are using Mac, you can open the PDF files with the native software "Preview". Click on the "Print" icon at the top menu bar, then choose the pages that you would like to print and hit the "Print" button.

That’s all steps for solutions to Adobe Digital Editions printing is not allowed. It's rather easy, right? Don't hesitate to get Epubor Ultimate in handy! 

Best Books of the Year to Kick off the Year 2022!

Is reading more on your to-do list for 2022? If so, here are some of the best books of the year 2021, which can be the titles that can help you kick off the year 2022！

According to Amazon editors, they have announced the list of the top 20 books of the year. And below titles are the best among this list.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles 

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

Bonus tips: if you back up your purchased Kindle books on your local disk, you can try to use eBook DRM Removal to get rid of the DRM protection.