World's first commercial EPUB 3 Viewer with Readium SDK to be adopted by BOOKWALKER eBook Store
ACCESS CO., LTD., a global provider of advanced software technologies to the mobile, beyond-PC and digital TV markets, today announced PUBLUS™ Reader* v2.0, a iOS-supported EPUB® 3 viewer incorporating the Readium SDK from the Readium Foundation, a consortium committed to establishing electronic publishing standards. Going forward, ACCESS plans to enhance the environment for next-generation rich-content viewing utilizing PUBLUS Reader v2.0 with the Readium SDK.
Within this year, PUBLUS Reader v2.0 initially will be incorporated in the viewer provided by BOOKWALKER, an eBook store managed by BOOKWALKER CO., LTD. The store already incorporates PUBLUS Reader v1.0 (formerly called NetFront™ BookReader EPUB Edition), ACCESS' EPUB viewer app supporting both iOS and Android. BOOKWALKER now expects to strengthen scalability for future eBook store services with PUBLUS Reader v2.0, the world's first commercial EPUB 3 viewer to adopt the Readium SDK, an EPUB 3 rendering engine optimized for native apps on tablets and other devices.
PUBLUS Reader v2.0 achieves exceptionally broad compatibility with iBooks by using iOS' standard WebKit engine as its EPUB 3 engine. It is envisioned that publishers of EPUB 3 content will benefit from highly reduced validation costs, until now a heavy burden, thanks to PUBLUS Reader v2.0.
"The commercial adoption of the Readium SDK in ACCESS' new viewer is a groundbreaking step towards the global expansion of EPUB," said Bill McCoy, executive director of the International Digital Publishing Forum and president of the Readium Foundation. "ACCESS' active development of Readium technologies as a member of the Readium Foundation is helping to accelerate the global popularity of EPUB."
"ACCESS is developing advanced software solutions incorporating open-source-based technologies to rapidly provide end users worldwide with increasingly convenient eBook viewing environments," said Kunihiro Ishiguro, CTO, ACCESS. "We are delighted to help commercialize Readium for the expanded availability and usage of EPUB solutions."
ACCESS also plans to offer Android- and Windows-compatible versions of its PUBLUS Reader by collaborating in the development of multi-platform support for the Readium SDK
