We haven’t seen the death of paper books yet, but there’s already a documentary about its impending demise. EBooks are not as tactile, aromatic, or spatial as traditional forms of reading, but they are helping to spread the joys of reading to places where transportation is problematic. The works of philanthropic organizations like Worldreader and The  Information Heritage Initiative would be impossible without digital books.

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William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, has introduced a new line of eBook original mystery, suspense and thriller novels called Witness.

The series, which launches in October, will feature original straight-to-digital content, as well as backlist short stories from  Agatha Christie. The imprint has already acquired more than 100 full-length books, 10 of which will be published with the October debut. Witness will also publish digital versions of Agatha Christie’s short stories, including digital singles of the “Hercule Poirot” series and a single edition of the detective series with a foreword by Charles Todd.

“Our starting lineup gives an indication of the editorial scope of the imprint,” stated Dan Mallory, executive editor at William Morrow who is heading up Witness.  ”It’s an exciting collection of brand-new content, international bestsellers not previously available in the U.S., and newly digitized backlist classics. It runs the gamut from police procedurals to literary suspense; historical mysteries to action thrillers.”

Engineers at Fujitso Laboratories have developed motion and graphics sensors that can detect texts and images on paper surfaces with 1 pixel accuracy. The technology means that gesture interface systems can leave your digital tablets for the real world.

Until now, gesturing has often been used to operate PCs and other devices. But with this interface, we’re not operating a PC, but touching actual objects directly, and combining them with ICT equipment.

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Tumblr has updated its iPhone & iPad app and the update makes it easier to share Tumblr social content across social networks.

Version 3.3.1 lets you share posts via Twitter and Facebook, as well as email a Tumblr post in its entirety. The app update also lets users save content for later using Instapaper and Pocket.
The update also brings with it an alphabetized and searchable follow list, as well as animated GIFs while you scroll.

Earlier this month, Tumblr totally redesigned its Android app bringing with it a new interface, new post animations that pop out like Facebook’s chat heads, as well as a feature that makes photos pop out in your stream more.

iPhone app downloads increased by 12 percent to 5.02 million daily downloads in March 2013, as compared to March 2012, according to new metrics from Fiksu.

However, the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, revealed a 4 percent drop in download activity in March 2013 as compared to February 2013, which had 5.20 million daily downloads. In March, Fiksu also recorded its one hundred billionth app user action last month, meaning that the company has measured more than one billion app downloads on its platform.

“The ‘new normal’ continued in March, which was good news for mobile app marketers. Inventory has increased but costs have held steady, reflecting a maturity in the overall quality of apps and their ability to engage users,’” explained Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu in a statement.

Draw Something 2  Free is the No. 1 free iPhone app this week, according to research from AppData. The sequel to the popular social drawing app lets users share their drawings in a feed and follow other artists on the app.

Below, we’ve listed the top free iPhone apps of the week. The list links to Inside Network’s research about the individual apps, including historical charts, developer information and download information.

To support Mediabistro’s Media App Summit, we spotlight the top free apps every week–helping our readers discover, enjoy and analyze successful content. Read more

Venture capitalist Bill Gurley is pretty excited about the taxi-hailing app Uber that connects car services with passengers. On the stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York yesterday, he told the crowd that, “Uber is growing faster than eBay did.” He ought to know, he invested in both.

As TechCrunch points out, Gurley’s company Benchmark invested $6.7 million in eBay and less than two years later, it was worth more than $5 billion.

Gurley explained that today most popular companies today like Twitter and Instagram, for instance, work around a business model of building a viral system first, then they figure out how to upend the business. Uber, on the other hand, had a business model in place from the beginning, said Gurley. “Travis [Kalanick] has done an amazing job of scaling the business,” he said, adding that the company has done zero marketing and instead has focused on the user experience. Read more

If you have plans to run for office, it’s definitely a bad idea to take naked photos of your body parts and share them digitally. It’s probably not a great idea for anyone else, but for those guys who can’t help but exhibit themselves, there is Dickorate.

The new Android app encourages men to take photos of their “junk” and then dress it up in a virtual costume and share these images with potential mates.

Check it out: “DICKORATE lets you photograph and enlarge your dick from your Android phone, then add some dick-identity: a tattoo, rings, mustache, a hat or full seasonal regalia, and e-mail or text to a friend or lover with a personalized message. Your anonymity is assured; you are truly a Private Dick.” Creepy or funny? You decide.

Axeman’s Jazz (Skip Langdon Mystery Series #2) by Julie Smith is today’s Free eBook of the Day.

The mystery novel involves solving a series of murders taking place in 12-step programs. Check it out:

Who better to take him out than tall, funny, social-misfit Skip Langdon, now a homicide detective on the Axeman team, a gig that takes her into the 12-Step groups to meet the suspects (giving author Smith a chance for gentle satire). As Skip threads her fascinated way from one self-help group to another, she finds she has more in common with the twelve-steppers than just the murder—her mother, for one thing, whom she encounters at Overeaters Anonymous! And she knows what they do not: that among their anonymous numbers is a murderous, and dangerously attractive psychopath.

Amazon has the free download.

For more free eBooks, check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

If you believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, then you have to check out ThingLink. The social network is designed as a place to learn what is going on in the world around you through rich media images.

You can use the site to create rich media images that are embedded with links. Want to show an image of your book and link to its Amazon listing or a YouTube video trailer? ThingLink can help you do it. The tool lets you add music, video, and text links to your images. Like other social networks, you follow other ThingLink users like bands and authors, to keep you up to date on their stories visually.

As SocialTimes points out,  pretty soon you may begin seeing these images in your Facebook timeline.