Rakuten Kobo launches subscription service for audiobooks

Good news for booklovers! Rakuten Kobo announces the addition of audiobooks to the Kobo experience. Readers are now able to selected how to enjoy their books across all genres through a monthly subscription plan.

Kobo customers can subscribe at $12.99 a month and with a 30-day free trial period to access the audiobooks. Customers can redeem their monthly credit for any audiobook at Kobo.com, even if its list price is higher. Audiobooks can also be purchased a la carte.

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LG masked the aperture of the pre-release V30s to try and control its narrative

Wanting to announce a product on their terms, LG did a bit of “creative subterfuge” as The Verge describes it by tinkering around with the phone’s aperture. The company deliberately misrepresented the aperture value of f/1.6 as f/1.7 to throw off any industrial espionage and particularly nosy fans who want to know the latest specs ahead of the release. This understandably had the people who got pre-release review units question whether the phone had an f/1.6 aperture value. LG after all did announce the feature a few weeks before the device was launched at IFA 2017. But the move was seen as LG taking control of sharing its own news instead of leaks beating them to the punch.

The company does want to reassure users that the V30 retail units will ship with an f/1.6 aperture. In a statement they say, “Before unveiling a new product, LG Electronics safeguards confidential and proprietary device information by masking the true values of important product specifications. Some preproduction preview sample devices recently distributed featured non-final software, which maintained masked information with regard to aperture. The LG V30 features an F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens, an industry leading innovation.” 

‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ loses its director

Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV/Flickr

Trouble is brewing yet again at Disney and Lucasfilm. The upcoming last film to the current Star Wars trilogy just lost its director Colin Trevorrow. Disney issued a statement about the news saying, “Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process, but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon.” The company has yet to name a replacement. According to Variety’s sources, the split was caused by differences regarding script treatment. The news comes out a month after Wonder screenwriter Jack Thorne was brought on by Disney to polish the film’s script. Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connolly were the ones who penned the most recent draft of the script.

Disney announced that Trevorrow was working on Episode IX back at the August 2015 D23 Expo. He was fresh off directing the hugely successful Jurassic World film. Episode IX is expected to hit theatres two years from now on May 24^th with filming expected to start early next year. Whether this news will affect the schedule, we can’t say yet. Trevorrow joins the likes of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were booted from the Han Solo spinoff, and Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, who was supposed to direct a standalone Star Wars spinoff.

Samsung patent shows us nearly edge-to-edge display

Samsung isn’t a stranger to the bezel-less design trend sweeping the smartphone market. You could even say they’re one of the pioneers for it. But it looks like they’re not nearly done shrinking down those bezels, or at least this design patent makes us say they’re at least thinking about shrinking it down further. GalaxyClub.nl discovered a design patent the company filed with the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS) in May 2016. And as the diagram above shows, the bezels are almost non-existent with just a small notch on top that will most likely house things like the camera and speaker and whatever sensor is needed for the front panel.

However, we don’t know if this design patent will ever make it to a device. Companies will file different patents but these don’t exactly translate into actual product. But we can’t say we aren’t hoping they actually consider making this. What about you? Is this something you’d want?

Source: Android Authority