In a major announcement, Google has said that it will make available the Harry Potter e-books on its platform as well.

Before this, the e-books of the Harry Potter series were available through Pottermore, the website of the book’s author, JK Rowling.

According to a TechCrunch report , Amazon is also working closely with the author to bring the Harry Potter books to the Kindle platform.

Kindle sells books with DRM (digital rights management) whereas the Pottermore site sells their e-books in the DRM free format. Amazon, however, says the decision rests on the publishers and that they are open to the idea of selling books without DRM. For the users, absence of DRM means they can read these books on pretty much any platform of their choice, including iPhone and iPads.

Users will still have to buy the books from Pottermore itself, but they will have the choice of choosing their e-book platform – Google Books or Amazon Kindle. Google is slightly ahead in this race, since Pottermore would be using Google Checkout as the preferred third party payment platform for accepting payments.

On the development, a Google blog says, “Pottermore will be the exclusive place to buy Harry Potter e-books and digital audiobooks. You’ll be able to buy e-books from the Pottermore Shop, push them to your Google Books library and store them alongside your other Google eBooks. Your other Google e-Books may be purchased from any of more than 250 independent booksellers or from Google directly.”

Scribd, a website to share and read documents and news stories, has launched a new App today, called Float. According to the company, it is designed to improve the mobile reading experience.

The app allows users to select various areas of interest and pick favourite websites to “follow” and stories gets delivered to users in a constantly updated feed.

You can then select stories to view or store in your “library” for later viewing. The app allows customisation of how page appears – changing the font size or choosing a sepia tone (newspaper) or a night reading mode with a black background – much like you can do on e-reading apps like Kindle and Nook. You can also link your Facebook, Twitter, and Scribd accounts to Float and easily share content with those sites.

This app basically reformats the hard to read full web pages which are difficult to read on smaller devices like smartphones. Float strips down those web pages and converts them on the fly to the Float format.

Scraping content like this tends to anger content owners, which is why Scribd has partnered with 150 websites including Allrecipes.com, The Associated Press, The Atlantic, Engadget, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, HuffingtonPost, InStyle, People, Salon, Scientific American, TheStreet, TechCrunch, Time, Wired, and three CBS Interactive properties: CBSNews.com, CHOW, and CNET to display content in the new format.

The key features of the app includes ‘floating text’ that can move up and down like a Browser or left to right like a book; and the ‘reading list’ for offline reading.

It also includes a “library” that allows you to archive and organise all your reading by date, publisher, and title, and one-touch font magnification.

You can choose from a dozen customised reading styles including night time and sunlight reading. And also share back to Facebook, Twitter, Scribd, or e-mail in mere two clicks. Content Synchronisation to Float.com is also available. (Float.com is the site through which you can choose your content and modify your account).

The application is free for the users, but there will be advertisements later to generate revenue. You can download it from here. The Android and iPad versions of the app are going to be launched later this year.

The Economist has come out with an Android App which will bring all the content of the print version to the Android device owners the same day when the magazine publishes. Users would especially like the offline caching facility which will allow them to read the articles even when they are not connected to the Internet.

Users would also be able to access the audio version of stories also for easy listening. The Economist app for Android itself would be free but is likely to use in app purchases for different issues. The Editor’s highlights, however, would be free. Those who already have some kind of a subscription for the magazine will be able to access it for free.

The in app purchase system is especially handy for people who only want occasional access into the contents of The Economist. If at any point the users decide they want full subscription, they can buy it within the app itself.

The iPhone and iPad apps of The Economist have already reached two million downloads, despite their launch only in November 2010. If the iPhone and iPad app example is anything to go by, about 50 per cent users pay to view the latest content, whereas rest prefer to be content with the Editor’s Highlights articles.

7Seas Entertainment, a BSE listed game development company, has launched 10 new mobile games across action, arcade, racing, shooting and sports genres.

The new games that 7Seas launched today include Alexia The Great and The Fight 3D in the action category, MobiXonix, The Jars-I and The Jars-II in the arcade genre, Moto Riders and Rally Drive in racing and Air War 3D and Shoot Out in shooting and Catches Win Matches 3D in the sports genres.

The 3D games are priced between Rs 100 to Rs 150, while 2D games cost Rs 50 to Rs 100. Hungama Mobile, India Games, IMA mobile will distribute these games through mobile operators. The games will be also available on Ovi store.

“With the burgeoning sales penetration of mobile handsets, especially those high-end devices that support high-speed game plays, and the increasing levels of adoption for the same, we are launching 10 mobile games to our existing portfolio of 7 mobile games,” L Maruti Sanker, managing director of 7Seas Entertainment said.

Rally Drive is a multi-player game while the Fight 3D, MobiXonix, Air War 3D and Shoot Out are multi-lingual and are available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Moto Riders and Rally Drive are available in all above languages except Dutch.

“7Seas will also launch 4 to 5 Games for the Android phones between December and March,” managing director of the company told The Mobile Indian.
He added: “Android is our next focus area as it is the fastest growing mobile operating system that is also finding acceptance in India.”

Jump Games, a mobile apps and games developer, has launched the official game of the movie ‘Singham’. The game play includes racing and action sequences, where the player plays as Bajirao Singham, the protagonist of the movie played by Ajay Devgan in the film.

In the last two months, Jump Games has developed and launched mobile games on two Bollywood flicks &#151 Double Dhamaal and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

The game is set in the scenic background of Goa, the player takes on the role of BajiRao Singham and shoots down the enemies while driving several vehicles ranging from Motorcycles to SUVs. There are various challenges and features that make the game engaging as the player climbs up the levels.

The developer claims that the player can enjoy hours of gaming with every subsequent level being unique.

The game is available through the mobile operators’ WAP sites, like Airtel Live and Vodafone Live. All the major operators have the game in their respective sites.