To each his own. I'm very happy with mine.
Amazon Kindle anyone?
- Thread starter Kirby
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I'm itching to get one, but they're still not available to Canadians. I thought about getting one anyway and seeing if I could get it to work, but after looking in to it, I found out that you need an American credit card (or a credit card registered to an American address) to download content.
Boo!
Boo!
Yeah. It's probably both a publisher and carrier thing that will stop the Kindle from reaching Canada. Neither Rogers or Bell will commit to lifetime unlimited data and I'm sure a lot of Canadian publishing arms will want a cut of whatever sales are made in Canada.
I received mine last night and after about 5 minutes of goofing around with it, I was up and running. I read for about an hour with no more eye strain than if I was reading a book. I love the dictionary feature, and the you can add highlights and comments too. I'm going to enjoy this...
S
Stone_Cold_Sisko
Guest
The e-paper technology is pretty good, but i'm not willing to pay money for books and not own them. Enough other media is slotting into that "you don't own it, you just have a license to watch/listen/read on our terms", I consider books to be a little more sacred, not willing to pay for a "license to indulge" in a closed circle.
Amazon's ability to delete books off your Kindle is disquieting. Imagine if you went to a Borders, bought a book... later it turned out Borders weren't supposed to have sold it... so Borders employees (not even police with a warrant) break into your house, and take the book back. I don't care if they leave a $20 on the dresser or not. It's complete bullshit.
of course, the reason why Amazon would say they are not the same situation... because you didn't actually buy the BOOK from Amazon, you bought... a LICENSE TO INDULGE. You don't own the damn book. Which is the whole problem!!!
Interestingly, Amazon was one of the first major retailers to go DRM-free with music, and sell pure MP3s. iTunes later with DRM-free AAC files.
Amazon's ability to delete books off your Kindle is disquieting. Imagine if you went to a Borders, bought a book... later it turned out Borders weren't supposed to have sold it... so Borders employees (not even police with a warrant) break into your house, and take the book back. I don't care if they leave a $20 on the dresser or not. It's complete bullshit.
of course, the reason why Amazon would say they are not the same situation... because you didn't actually buy the BOOK from Amazon, you bought... a LICENSE TO INDULGE. You don't own the damn book. Which is the whole problem!!!
Interestingly, Amazon was one of the first major retailers to go DRM-free with music, and sell pure MP3s. iTunes later with DRM-free AAC files.
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This is pretty much where I stand. I love computers, I'm almost always next to mine, but when it comes to good old fashioned reading, I just cant do it any other way than with a book
A company called Plastic Logic has an e-reader in the works that sounds very promising. It'll go into trial release through selected partners later this year and then go into general release next year. It'll have a thickness of less than 7mm and weigh less than 16 oz, while the reading surface will be 8.5" by 11". It'll be able to display Excel, PowerPoint, Word, PDFs, and others. The screen size means it'll be able to display pages from newspapers, magazines, and comics far better than the smaller e-readers currently on the market.
Edit to add: one big drawback for the reader in terms of displaying magazine and comics is that it'll have a black and white display. Once a reader like this is available with a color display (and a reasonable price) it'll open a lot of doors for digital newspapers, magazines, and comics to increase in sales.
Edit to add: one big drawback for the reader in terms of displaying magazine and comics is that it'll have a black and white display. Once a reader like this is available with a color display (and a reasonable price) it'll open a lot of doors for digital newspapers, magazines, and comics to increase in sales.
That's basically the only reason I'd buy one - newspapers and magazines. Comics would be a bonus I guess, especially since there's a new online comic book digital distribution store coming soon.
The same problem exists with electrobnic databases, the kind university libraries have been buying. Faculties were convinced (well, semi-cinvinced) that these databaes represented the future because it was cheaper and they'd have access to far more, espcially in econimic downturns.
Of course, in prrevious economic downturns, those libraries till had the physical objects they'd bought. Now university libraries are claming they can't pay the fees charged by the publishers of these databaes (which are, it's true, excessive), and when we lose the subscription we lose everything. All at once.
Progress is only awesome when you pay attention to who's driving it, and why. The Kindle/1984 debacle was not an accident. It's the future.
Yes, it's the future.
Bad things can happen from what seem to be good things. Kindles can snatch back your books. Computers make tracking people easy, from where you go to what you buy. There's a downside and yet what do you do? Progress marches on and you either go with it or are left behind.
Bad things can happen from what seem to be good things. Kindles can snatch back your books. Computers make tracking people easy, from where you go to what you buy. There's a downside and yet what do you do? Progress marches on and you either go with it or are left behind.
I'd certainly be interested in an ebook reader - for magazines as well as books. I think it's just very handy. And their battery life is a lot better than what you get from Netbooks or the likes as far as I've been able to gather.
I've had a chance to see the Sony reader for real. It's a really nice device. And I agree that the display is very easy on the eyes when you read a page. However, I don't like what happens when you move to a different page. It's not the time delay that bothers me (there's a time delay when you flip a book page as well). What I don't like is the rather stark contrast in color - going from (almost) white to (almost) black for the entire screen. I found that to be unpleasant and found myself looking away whenever I flipped pages. I think it would be nice if they could change this.
Based solely on pictures, on of the things I don't like about the Kindle is that I feel too much space is taken up by buttons. I keep thinking they should be maxing out the potential screen real estate (something I also kept thinking when I was holding the Sony reader).
A lovely cominbation in my opinion would be a device roughly the size of the Sony reader, with a similar design and just as sleak, with the screen maxed out over the entire surface of the device and a touch screen for input. Or another interesting way to go would be to put controls on the back that you could operate with your finger tips while you're holding it.
P.S.: I agree that the devices as well as the ebooks really need to come down in price. I wonder if they've ever consider subscription models where you pay a certain amount per month, entitling you to a reader at a reduced price as well as a certain amount of books for free per month.
I've had a chance to see the Sony reader for real. It's a really nice device. And I agree that the display is very easy on the eyes when you read a page. However, I don't like what happens when you move to a different page. It's not the time delay that bothers me (there's a time delay when you flip a book page as well). What I don't like is the rather stark contrast in color - going from (almost) white to (almost) black for the entire screen. I found that to be unpleasant and found myself looking away whenever I flipped pages. I think it would be nice if they could change this.
Based solely on pictures, on of the things I don't like about the Kindle is that I feel too much space is taken up by buttons. I keep thinking they should be maxing out the potential screen real estate (something I also kept thinking when I was holding the Sony reader).
A lovely cominbation in my opinion would be a device roughly the size of the Sony reader, with a similar design and just as sleak, with the screen maxed out over the entire surface of the device and a touch screen for input. Or another interesting way to go would be to put controls on the back that you could operate with your finger tips while you're holding it.
P.S.: I agree that the devices as well as the ebooks really need to come down in price. I wonder if they've ever consider subscription models where you pay a certain amount per month, entitling you to a reader at a reduced price as well as a certain amount of books for free per month.
We'd be living in a pretty terrible world if everyone had that fatalistic attitude: "It's going to happen, there's nothing you can do, suck it up."
Electronic databases and e-books have tremendous potential for good, particularly in regards to distribution of materials and environmental issues. But looking at the Kindle/1984 story or vanishing databases and assuming they're anomolies (or otherwise not business as usual) does not get us to the good place e-texts have promised, even if you close your eyes real real tight and wish really hard. I believe, still, in what e-texts can do for us.
All new tech should be subject to debate, but that requires people to actually think about the issues and not just assume it's all going to work out. We need people to get in line and pay ridiculous sums for each new Kindle or iPod, and we also need people to point out where the vision is going wrong.
Now that's my kind of e-reader. Although I do need a colour display.
That looks a lot like what I would like to see in ebook readers. It's very sleak, it's got touch and it places a premium on reading space (even though the frame is pretty thick). It also really seems small and light.
I'm not quite as excited about the UI at this point. It's very conventional and not as innovative as I would have hoped (not that I really expected that but...). But it'll probably do the job.
I certainly do hope they go through with the speeding up, mind you... And, yes, color would be nice.
Note: The speaker for the company was referring to note taking on paper as an important point in their use case. They didn't show any of that. I wonder if they're considering pen input.
Sony is releasing two new ebook readers at the end of the month. The 2 models the 300 is a smaller version of the existing 505 model, it has a 5" Screen and will be $199. The 600 will be a 6" Touchscreen model. Both do no have wifi, Somy is working on a model with Wifi. I have owned the 505 in the past its a nice reader but a tad large to carry around I look forward to seeing of the 300 is a bit more pocketable....
You pretty much covered what I was about to write. I don't believe in temporary ownership of literature. If I buy a book it's mine until I die or I decide to get rid of it in some way. It's always been that way and, frankly, when it comes to literature I refuse to "move with the times" on this one issue. Non negotiable. And if that makes me an elitist, then I wear the label in 5-ft. neon letters over my head.
Next to my computer is a book I purchased last year that was printed in the 1760s. I have zero confidence that if print is discontinued in favor of Kindle or other devices that my descendents will be able to access the electronic versions.
I heard about the deletion issue last week. As I wrote to friend of mine, that has permanently destroyed any interest I have in such devices (Kindle isn't available here in Canada yet anyway). Lifetime boycott. And I do not acknowledge this as Ludditism or overreaction so no one bother accusing me of it. It's a matter of trust and the very fact it's possible for anyone to tell what I'm reading - f--k them.
I have nothing against the technology. To each their own. I think the Kindle concept is a cool one, and if they've addressed the eye-strain issue, then bonus. What I don't like is when new tech comes along people have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of older -- but more PERMANENT -- technology. You need only count how many CD shops have disappeared in the last few years, because people are more interested in buying temporary downloads rather than CDs. Once again, same argument I just used for books. I have vinyl 60 years old that plays fine. I have CDs that are now more than 20 years old that play as good as the day I bought them. I have MP3 files that are 6 years old that I can no longer play. Do the math.
A friend of mine went down to the States for a convention earlier this year (a SF literature convention as it happened) and he told me how bookstores where he went - Orlando - had become ghost towns because everyone was using Kindles instead. That's both scary and, frankly, depressing.
And we also need people to realize that just because it's new doesn't mean we need to eliminate what's old. Unfortunately there are too many people these days who are attracted by the newest shiny thing, and forget about the tried and true until it's, frankly, too late.
And if I'm accused of being a bit fatalistic myself, all I have to say is go to your local museum and talk to archivists who are already predicting that the e-mail generation is going to be one big massive hole in the historical record.
All I'm saying is, live and let live with the Kindles and other e-book doohickies, just don't try and use them as an excuse to retire print. (Note, btw, that I said print. Not paper. If use of paper is an issue, we're a smart society - we can come up with a permanent substance as a replacement, if needs be.) And sure as hell don't allow corporations to control what we can and cannot read -- especially after we've purchased the material. DRMs in particular should be drummed out of existence, as should this crap about Amazon (or any company) being able to erase files remotely. It's not the wave of the future. It is B.S.
Cheers
Alex
I'll stick with my Windows Mobile phone with Microsoft Reader and Haali reader. 
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