Wirebound's Friday roundup of what's been going on in the world of publishing technology this week...

Kobo has partnered with retailer Pick n Pay to sell its Touch e-reader in South Africa. A localised online store will offer books in English and Afrikaans.

Writing at publishingperspectives.com, Influential Software CEO Andy Richardson warns that unsustainably low prices, self-publishing imprints and half-thought out lending schemes mean e-reader vendors risk killing the book business in pursuit of ever larger markets.

Announcing third-quarter results in the wake of the agreement to combine its Penguin imprint with Bertlesmann's Random House, Pearson reported that e-book revenue at Penguin was up 35 per cent on the same period in 2011. The company said it expects sales to remain strong in the key fourth-quarter Christmas period, boosted by new titles from Patricia Cornwell, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy and Jared Diamond in the US and Jeff Kinney, David Walliams, Pippa Middleton and Dawn French in the UK.

And finally...



Pearson and Bertelsmann's decision to stick with the conservative 'Penguin Random House' as the name of their megapublishing joint venture disappointed those who were hoping for the more quirky 'Random Penguin' but reminded me that on a trip to London Zoo this summer I came across a genuine random penguin house in the shape of the Grade 1 listed 1930s pool that now stands immaculate but empty since its former residents moved to a less striking but more comfortable beach-style enclosure in 2004. Designed by soviet émigré architect Berthold Lubetkin and Danish structural engineer Ove Arup, its construction is described in a nice article at engineering-timelines.com from which the picture above is taken.