iBooks

Random House, the same publisher who released the Harry Potter Enhanced Edition is set to release a special edition of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series to iBooks. The Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition features all new watercolor covers, which you can see here, in-depth character maps, Martin-approved annotations and more.

The new maps at beginning of each chapter gives readers and interactive look at the current character's location and details of all the surrounding castles and lands, and an appendix at the end of the novel includes additional information about Westeros, according to Entertainment Weekly.

An October iPad mini announcement is looking better and better. The reliable and well-connected Jim Dalrymple confirmed John Paczkowski's earlier rumor which claimed Apple will hold a second fall product event to be held on October 23.

On Saturday, Reuters became the first major news outlet to reaffirm the October 23rd rumor. In an article titled "Apple to host October 23 event, iPad mini expected", Reuters cites another "source familiar with the matter", who verified Apple will hold an event on October 23, but declined to specify what for.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels are now compatible with the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Rowling’s website is offering the entire Potter series in ePub format via her Pottermore Shop. The electronic books are compatible with most iOS and Android devices, or other eReaders that work with the ePub format. You can check below for a complete list of compatible devices

The individual books range between $8 and $10 each, or you can get the entire set for $57.54. The Harry Potter novels are not available in the Apple iBookstore, but they can be downloaded from the Amazon Kindle store.

Apple watchers are expecting Apple to release the iPad 2 this spring, packed with new features and a refined form factor. Aside from various mock-ups of the next generation iPad appearing at CES this year, several recent leaks from industry insiders are painting a more detailed picture of what the iPad 2 hardware will include.

Similar to Apple's improvements to the iPhone 4 with the Retina display, AppleInsider discoveries have been made indicating a quadrupling of screen resolution is in the works for the iPad 2. Thanks to the release of iOS 4.3 beta firmware, developers have found graphics in the iBooks application that have two different resolutions.

Those who enjoy reading books now have added functionality thanks to Apple's update of iBooks to version 2.1 on the iPad and other iOS devices. One notable improvement includes the ability to read fully illustrated children's books, photography books, or cookbooks and the like.

In addition, a new Collections feature helps to organize your book collection into different categories for easy access. Full AirPrint compatibility is also included in the update, allowing users to print PDF files or notes directly to their printers.

Apple confirmed it intends to launch international versions of its iBookstore when it ships the iPad to several countries on May 28. iBooks will be available as a free app from the App Store and ebooks can be previewed, purchased and read using the e-reader software.

Previous to the international ship date, the iBookstore was limited to iPad owners in the US due to local copyright laws. So far, Apple has sold 1.5 million ebooks on iPads across the US. Apple continues to work on deals with several publishers and has verified iBookstore access will be available in the following countries:

A report today from AppAdvice.com brought welcome news to anyone interested in reading eBooks on the iPad. With their privileged peek at the iPad's iBookstore, AppAdvice.com was able to spot that Apple has included the entire Project Gutenburg library of eBooks. This means over 30,000 free books will be available for download through iBooks. Yep, 30,000 free books.

For those of you that aren't already familiar with Project Gutenburg, it is the largest online collection of free eBooks. The project was founded by the inventor of eBooks, Michael Hart. Project Gutenburg is volunter supported, and continues to grow.

The following list of the project's top 10 eBooks over the last 30 days provides just a few examples of the sort of literature available through Project Gutenburg: