The Harry Potter publisher ascribes its record profits to a hunger for affordable diversion. That’s the magic of booksIn the gloom of a UK economy teetering on the edge of recession, a glittering puff of smoke wafted up last week from the publisher that will for ever be associated with Harry Potter, when it reported its best ever performance.Bloomsbury is a very different company from the one that lucked out back in 1997 with JK Rowling, whose heptalogy continues to work its magic 26 years on. Her boy wizard would no doubt spot traces of floo powder in the hearths connecting international and UK sales, ebooks for universities and old‑fashioned books for children and adults – all of them combining to fly the company to rises of 15% in sales and 16% in profits in the last year. “In challenging economic times,” said the company’s CEO, Nigel Newton, “readers are turning to books as affordable as they cut back on more expensive forms of diversion.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-06-04 17:25:05 UTC ]
Rakuten has a trio of new Kobo ereaders, including the company’s first two with color displays. On Wednesday, the company revealed the $220 Kobo Libra Colour and $150 Clara Colour alongside the monochrome $130 Clara BW. You can preorder them today, ahead of their April 30 launch. The Kobo Libra... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-04-10 04:01:53 UTC ]
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Author’s comments on Monday relating to trans women were posted as new hate crime law came into force in ScotlandComments by JK Rowling that described prominent transgender women activists as “men” will not be recorded as a non-crime hate incident, Police Scotland has said.The Harry Potter... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-04-03 19:08:34 UTC ]
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Next year, SenLinYu’s Harry Potter fic Manacled will disappear from Archive of Our Own. They don’t want to take it down, but it’s the only way to keep others from profiting off of the work. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2024-02-28 20:42:17 UTC ]
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Fans who were girls in the era of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight are now the women who have powered the success of Barbie and the Eras Tour. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-02-18 19:51:27 UTC ]
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From fan fiction about Disney cartoons having sex to raunchy shows from Hollywood stars, pornographic audio is podcasting’s hottest new trendHave you ever stood at the school gates, waiting to pick up your six-year-old, while secretly listening to fan fiction about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-02-12 16:32:24 UTC ]
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A Call of Duty game sells. That’s what it does. And it usually tops the sales charts, almost every year since 2009. However, last year was a bit different: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III landed in second place. To convey the gravitational pull of CoD, when Microsoft was fighting to buy... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-19 12:15:26 UTC ]
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Just like death and taxes, you can usually rely on a Call of Duty game to top the sales charts each year. The various entries in Activision’s warfare simulation franchise have mostly done just that, going all the way back to 2009. This year’s a bit different. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-18 19:16:41 UTC ]
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By reusing and repurposing existing writing into viral fragments on Twitter, the account functioned like today’s chatbots. The Guardian spoke to Jacob Bakkila, the human behind the accountMore than a decade before an AI-powered chatbot could do your homework, help you make dinner or pass the bar... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-03 15:00:04 UTC ]
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Investors seemed unimpressed but analysts say even talk of a merger reflects moves to consolidate in a tough market Barbie and Tom Cruise’s Top Gun are planning on getting hitched. Warner Bros Discovery, the Hollywood studio that brought us the Batman, Harry Potter and Barbie films, and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-21 17:19:19 UTC ]
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The campaign by Publishers for Palestine will offer more than 30 free ebooks of poetry, fiction and nonfiction as ‘an act of solidarity’A group of publishers has launched a week-long initiative encouraging people to read books by Palestinian authors and about Palestinian history by offering free... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-29 17:20:38 UTC ]
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When it comes to preserving any type of document in a format that anyone can later open and be sure it looks right, it’s hard to beat the PDF format. PDF, or portable document format, was developed by Adobe in the early 1990s to make it easy to share formatted documents regardless of the... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2023-11-29 11:30:00 UTC ]
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Publishers for Palestine, a coalition of more than 350 publishers from around the world, is offering more than 30 free ebooks by and about Palestinians as part #ReadPalestine week. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-29 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) just kicked off its Las Vegas-based re:Invent conference with a stream of announcements, most of which involve the year’s most popular technology, AI. These news items, taken as a whole, give us a sneak peek at the company’s long-term goals for... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-28 20:00:28 UTC ]
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As Cyber Monday begins to wind down, nearly all of the deals are still live on Amazon, so if you've had other stuff going on, you still have time to shop Echos, Kindles, Fire TV sticks and more at a discount. Amazon seems to reserve its best deals for three events: its... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-27 22:18:55 UTC ]
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With Cyber Monday deals have come big savings on all things Amazon. If you’ve been looking to get a new Echo speaker for your home office or pick up a Kindle as a holiday gift, now’s a great time to shop for all of Amazon’s gadgets and gear. For 2023, we’re seeing a new... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-27 14:45:32 UTC ]
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The days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday don’t have fancy shopping names associated with them, but it’s still a good time to shop for deals on Amazon devices, as most sale prices are still going strong. Amazon has sales on its own Kindles, Echos, Fire tablets and... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-24 16:17:48 UTC ]
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Like Amazon Prime Day before it, Black Friday is a good time to save on Amazon’s own devices. We’re seeing some deals that match — and a few that beat — the prices from July and October’s sales. If you’ve had your eye on a Fire TV Stick or a Ring doorbell, or if you want... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-24 05:01:57 UTC ]
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The British Library’s head of digital publications on the urgency of preserving digital stories, from smartphone apps to interactive web narrativesGiulia Carla Rossi collects the fragile artefacts of our increasingly transient publishing world. She is a curator of digital publications at the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-18 13:00:21 UTC ]
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After a series of delays, Hogwarts Legacy is now available for the Nintendo Switch console. The wizardly game was released in February for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, with the PS4 and Xbox One versions following in May. The Switch version was also expected during the... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-14 19:21:59 UTC ]
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The Sonos Beam has been our top pick for compact soundbars for a while now. It offers a lot in a small package and the second-gen version also supports more immersive Dolby Atmos audio. The Beam doesn’t have any upfiring drivers though, so the impact of that spatial... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-09 18:30:45 UTC ]
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